Pumas put UJ to the sword

The Pumas scored a convincing 35-12 win over the University of Johannesburg in a lively pre-season encounter in Witbank on Friday night.

With the Pumas' and UJ's second teams playing a 'curtain-raiser' to the 'main' match, the newly-promoted Currie Cup Premier Division team got off to a blistering start in the second encounter with two early tries.

UJ flyhalf André Smith - his team's standout backline player - scored one of their two tries (the other coming from loose forward Justin Wheeler) and he also converted one of the five-pointers.

"It could've been closer in the end had we finished better," lamented UJ head coach Hugo van As in conversation with the suparugby.com website afterwards.

UJ - who are yet to qualify for the semifinals of the FNB Varsity Cup presented by Steinhoff International - will get their 2010 Varsity Cup campaign underway against TUT in Pretoria next Monday (kick-off 4.30pm).

The scorers:

For the Pumas:
Tries:
Eduaan van der Walt 2, Siviwe Magaba, Nicky Kritzinger, Elgar Watts
Cons: Braam Pretorius 5

For UJ:
Tries:
André Smith, Justin Wheeler
Con: Smith