{"id":12200,"date":"2012-07-07T12:17:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T10:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/rugby-blues-thrash-depleted-force-32-9-to-stave-off-wooden-spoon\/"},"modified":"2012-07-07T12:17:18","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T10:17:18","slug":"rugby-blues-thrash-depleted-force-32-9-to-stave-off-wooden-spoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-blues-thrash-depleted-force-32-9-to-stave-off-wooden-spoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Blues thrash depleted Force 32-9 to stave off wooden spoon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">July 7<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; The Blues unleashed a three-try burst in<br \/>\nthe second half to beat an injury-ravaged Western Force 32-9 at<br \/>\nEden Park on Saturday and boost their hopes of avoiding Super<br \/>\nRugby&#8217;s wooden spoon.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Flanker Steven Luatua scored a try in the first half and<br \/>\nCharles Piutau, Ma&#8217;a Nonu and Luke Braid all crossed in quick<br \/>\nsuccession in the second to secure the Blues their third win in<br \/>\nthe penultimate round of a dismal season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Blues&#8217; bonus-point victory from scoring four tries<br \/>\nlifted them a point above Perth-based Force into third from the<br \/>\nbottom of the standings.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Johannesburg-based Lions sit bottom of the southern<br \/>\nhemisphere&#8217;s provincial championship, seven points behind the<br \/>\nForce with two matches to play.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Blues took a 13-9 lead at the end of an uninspiring<br \/>\nfirst half littered with handling errors and befitting of the<br \/>\nteams&#8217; lowly standing.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Blues had the edge in territory and Ma&#8217;a Nonu raised a<br \/>\nbrief burst of enthusiasm from the sparse crowd by driving<br \/>\ntoward the line in the 28th minute but was denied a try by<br \/>\nvideo review.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Luatua burrowed over the line near the right-hand corner<br \/>\nmoments later, however, to put the Blues up 8-6 against the<br \/>\nForce who lacked captain David Pocock and veteran lock Nathan<br \/>\nSharpe due to injury.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Blues fullback Piutau broke open the game 15 minutes after<br \/>\nthe break, touching down at the right corner again after taking<br \/>\na long pass from Nonu.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nonu helped himself to his 100th first class try minutes<br \/>\nlater, cantering 10 metres to the line, with an off-load from<br \/>\nsubstitute Peter Saili cutting the Force defence to ribbons.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Number eight Luke Braid joined the party with a fourth try<br \/>\n10 minutes from the whistle.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Force flyhalf Ben Seymour slotted three penalties in the<br \/>\nfirst half to score all of his side&#8217;s points as the visitors<br \/>\nwere kept scoreless for the last 45 minutes and slumped to their<br \/>\n12th loss of the season.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Amlan<br \/>\nChakraborty)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>July 7 (Reuters) &#8211; The Blues unleashed a three-try burst in the second half to beat an injury-ravaged Western Force 32-9 at Eden Park on Saturday and boost their hopes of avoiding Super Rugby&#8217;s wooden spoon. Flanker Steven Luatua scored a try in the first half and Charles Piutau, Ma&#8217;a Nonu and Luke Braid all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}