In a game of two halves, Stellenberg dominated the second half to secure a comeback win of 20-10 against Paul Roos on Saturday.
Paul Roos dominated the first half, leading 10-00 going into the second half. Tristan Armitage and Travis Pheiffer’s brilliance secured the aerial battle, keeping Stellenberg while Paul Roos looked dangerous off turnover ball; however, with Stellenberg’s big boys, under the leadership of Juvan Burden, started to dominate, allowing Ethan van Biljon to return the favour in the second half. Stellenberg scored two tries and a converted penalty during the final ten minutes to secure a 20-10 win over Paul Roos.
The first twelfe minutes were an arm wrestle between the 2026 1stXV powerhouses. However, thereafter, Paul Roos started to apply pressure on the Stellenberg tryline and eventually, the hard-running forwards of Paul Roos led to lock Stef de Villiers, who took a great soft hand pass to crash over. Travis Pheiffer converted for a 07-00 lead.
Paul Roos continued their “dominance”, and with five minutes to play in the first half, Travis Pheiffer converted a penalty, extending Paul Roos’ lead to 10-00.
Stellenberg absorbed a lot of brutal attacks from Paul Roos in their red zone, desperately hanging on during the final five minutes of play in the first half, going into the second half trailing 00-10.
Stellenberg started like a house on fire in the second half, and a yellow card to Paul Roos gave them an early edge. Following wave after wave of attacks, it was Ralton Rhode who scored in the corner after eight minutes of play to cut Paul Roos’ lead to 10-05.
With seven minutes to play, Stellenberg upped the speed of play, and following several waves of brutal attacks, Juvan Burden crashed over to level the scores 10-10.
From the kick-off, van Biljon claimed a 50/22 with five minutes still to play. Once again, Stellenberg launched a fifteen-boy attack, and Janno van Deventer crashed over to extend Stellenberg’s lead to 17-10.
With time up on the clock, Jannes Molnar earned an easy penalty for Stellenberg, which Ethan van Biljon converted to secure a historic 20-10 win for Stellenberg.
Scorers:
Stellenberg: Tries: Janu van Deventer, Juvan Burden, Ralton Rhode. Conversion: Ethan van Biljon. Penalty: Ethan van Biljon.
Paul Roos: Try: Stef de Villiers. Conversion: Travis Pheiffer. Penalty: Travis Pheiffer.
Teams:
Stellenberg: 1 Waldo Schloms, 2 Liam Joubert, 3 Janu van Deventer, 4 Jayden Young, 5 Juvan Burden, 6 Seth Coetze, 7 Carlo Brink, 8 Yanos Molnar, 9 Daniel Steffen, 10 Ethan van Biljon, 11 Emile Cilliers, 12 Daniel Mongie, 13 JC Swart, 14 Ralton Roode, 15 Liam Jacobs.
Paul Roos: 1 Thomas Meyer, 2 Lehan Barnard, 3 Zak Steyn, 4 Stef de Villiers, 5 Sebastian Cilliers, 6 Cristian le Roux, 7 Gerard Bekker, 8 Werner de Bruin, 9 Tristan Armitage, 10 Travis Pheiffer, 11 Cadynn Davids, 12 Albert Nel, 13 Tiaan Basson, 14 Jean Hamman, 15 Kyle Snyers.