Cheetahs squeeze past Force with narrow one-point victory

Cheetahs 30 - 29 Force, Toyota Stadium
Scorecard

Fly-half Fred Zeilinga's 76th minute decisive penalty helped Cheetahs squeeze past Force to secure a narrow one-point victory during the Super Rugby clash in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

Despite the home side running four impressive tries against the visitors, the South Africa team had to sweat hard to achieve the victory.

The first-half belonged completely to Francois Venter and his teammates as they took a sizable 17 points lead ahead of the half-time whistle.

Two converted tries by flanker Paul Schoeman (13) and winger Sergeal Petersen (32) in addition to a try each from number eight Uzair Cassiem (22) and fullback Clayton Blommetjies (29), and a penalty from Zeilinga helped the Cheetahs to score a decent 27-point haul.

In response, the visitors managed to score only a penalty from scrum-half Ian Prior (8) and a converted try by centre Kyle Godwin (26).

However, the second-half saw a completely contrasting picture as the home side failed to score a single point for the first 35 minutes.

Fullback Dane Haylett-Petty's (49, 63) dual tries changed the momentum in favour of the visitors as Prior (54) and Force's replacement fly-half Peter Grant (70, 72) added further nine points to their side's tally to take a slender two-point lead.

However, Zeilinga with a decisive penalty kick sealed the game for the home team as the Cheetahs managed to survive the final four minutes.

The win although doesn’t make any significant improvement to the Cheetahs' position in the South African Group, as their play-offs hopes are all but over considering the mathematical possibilities.

Force who had a complete futile season after securing just two victories from their previous 12 encounters, will surely rue the lost opportunity to earn a consolation victory.