By SARL Press Release, Date: 5/9/12
South African Rugby-League kicked of the 2012-2013-season with a Rugby League-Nines-tournament held at Silverbacks RLC (Pretoria) in partnership with TuksRugbyLeague.
The following club participated:
• Thomahawks (Ermelo)
• Silverbacks (Petoria)
• Roosters (Bloemfontein)
• Kunkwini Scorpions (Bronkhorstspruit)
• Tigers (Middelburg)
• TuksRL (Pretoria)
Using the new format of RL-Nines the games were set to be played at a much faster pace than the normal 13-man-code. This was emphasized by a slight modification of the rules with the scrums replaced by a “play-the-ball†and inclusion of a “power-play†whereby the scoring team could decide to either take the conversion-kick or go for another try in only one attempt or be penalized by having the game restarted on their own thirty-meter line.
Most of the clubs were also using this tournament to “introduce†their new players from union (15-man code) to this fast set sporting-code. Not having so much “stops†as union, made the entertainment that much better for the eager-beaver RL-runners.
TuksRL, as the host, made use of the opportunity to play three representative teams. New and old were selected in the three teams for the day-
TuksRL- Reds
TuksRL- Blues
TuksRL- Young Guns
For Group A the the logs after three round-robin games were as follows:
1. TuksRL- Reds
2. TuksRL- Young Guns
3. Thomahawks
4. Silverbacks
For Group B the the logs after three round-robin games were as follows:
1. Roosters
2. TuksRL- Blues
3. Tigers
4. Scorpions.
The full scores and photo’s can be seen on the South African Rugby League Fanpage on Facebook.
Winner of SARL Nine’s Plate Final was the Ermelo Rugby League Club.
SARL Nine’s Cub Final
The final was one of those entertainments left for last. The Rooster did not let the long travel from Bloemfontein handicapped them in this game. At the half-time the score was 6-all. In the second half TuksRL Reds added another 2 tries (one conversion) with Roosters adding one converted try.
Final score: TuksRL Reds 16 – 12 Bloemfontein Roosters
Steve Muniafu (Nairobi, Kenia) studying architecture at TUT (second year playing rugby-league), David Watson & Grahm Logan (both from Zimbabwe) were some of the “international-representatives†on the day. The youngest player of the day, Dwayne Bothma, 16 years of age was one of the TuksRL Young Guns who played like a veteran and is someone to watch in the future.
The SARL season kicks-off with the start of the 2012 North-Eastern Regional Derby-season this coming weekend in Brakpan.
