Wanderers break four year curse to win Premier League title

WINDHOEK, 05 AUG – Namibia Rugby Premier League outfit Wanderers on Saturday won the 2018 Premier Rugby League trophy after missing out on it for four years in a row.
Wanderers overcame their arch-rivals United in a hard fought 30-22 victory at the Hage Geingob Rugby Stadium in Olympia. Their victory ended a miserable run of four consecutive final defeats.

In an exciting match, Wanderers opened the scoring through a penalty by Rudie Pretorius in the second minute before United scored the first try in the 12th minute, when Morne Blom crashed over from a maul.
Winmar Rust, who failed to score a penalty for United in the eighth minute, failed to score the conversion.
Wanderers’ Denzil van Wyk ran in their first try of the match and Pretorius made no mistake with the conversion from the spot.

The league champions once again showed their dominance in the 23rd minute as Stefan Hattingh ran in their second try while Pretorius showed his fine form with the boot, extending their lead to 17-5 with another conversion.

Wanderers’ lead did not last long however, as United pulled themselves together and struck back with a try in the 32nd minute through Rust, who finally found his scoring boots as he converted from the spot.
He added three more points through a penalty just before the half-time break to keep the score close at 17-15 heading into the break.

In the second half, United took the lead for the first time when Rust showed his dominance against the Wanderers defence when he crashed over for a second time in the 42nd minute and he converted the subsequent spot kick to hand United a 22-17 lead.

After going down just three minutes into the second half a well-disciplined Wanderers beefed up their attacked despite United’s stern defensive efforts.
United’s defence was finally broken in the 57th minute, when Janry du Toit ran in their third try of the match, before Pretorius added an improbable conversion from the touchline to give his side a 24-22 lead.
United tried all they could to put points on the score sheet but their efforts failed to pay off as basic errors handed Wanderers two penalties which were scored by Pretorius to complete the 30-22 triumph.
NAMPA