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Cheetahs beat spirited Kings in derby thriller
By Peter Thompson
The in-form Cheetahs withstood a barnstorming late rally from Southern Kings to beat their South African rivals 40-36 in a Pro14 thriller.
Franco Smith's side looked to be coasting to a fourth successive win when Reinach Venter barged over to for a try that Tian Schoeman converted to put them 40-15 up with only 14 minutes remaining in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
The spirited Kings were reduced to 14 men when CJ Velleman was dismissed for making contact with Junior Pokomela's head, but they were not finished yet as Tienie Burger, Alandre van Rooyen and Berton Klaasen crossed in a frantic finale.
They ran out of time to complete what would have been astonishing turnaround, though, and remain bottom of Conference B after a game in which both sides sealed bonus points.
Fly-half Schoeman scored one of six tries for the Cheetahs and was clinical with the boot as their purple patch continued.
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Latest Comments
Apart from the scrum a really sloppy AB performance. Through successive coaching regimes they just don't seem to be able to cope with motivated and physically aggressive opposition, getting knocked off the ball and scrambling around with back foot ball. A lack of proper 10 means we are then not turning the opposition around and pinning them in their corners.
Go to commentsSheesh Goldie, South Africa actually lost two tests, IRE & ARG. Everyone got beaten at least twice this year so I'm not sure why the Boks are the "standard". I'd hate the ABs to follow their example. Our standard should be ABs (version 2015).
But I agree, the ABs are definitely in the B range. For me, it's a B+, the + mainly reflecting the lifting of the teams baseline from wobbly to now comfortably being able to win ugly.
Bring on 2025.
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