{"id":12210,"date":"2012-07-08T00:19:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T22:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/rugby-stormers-beat-cheetahs-to-secure-top-spot-in-conference\/"},"modified":"2012-07-08T00:19:58","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T22:19:58","slug":"rugby-stormers-beat-cheetahs-to-secure-top-spot-in-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-stormers-beat-cheetahs-to-secure-top-spot-in-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Stormers beat Cheetahs to secure top spot in conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">BLOEMFONTEIN, July 7<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; The Stormers claimed top<br \/>\nspot in the South African Super Rugby conference with a dour<br \/>\n13-6 win over the Cheetahs on Saturday.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The victory moved the Stormers to 62 points, eight ahead of<br \/>\nthe Bulls and Sharks, with one round of league matches to play.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Cape Town-based team missed the chance to go top of the<br \/>\noverall standings, however, as they failed to pick up a<br \/>\nbonus-point for scoring four tries and are still one point<br \/>\nbehind leaders the Waikato Chiefs.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The match was played in cold and very wet conditions with<br \/>\nboth teams content to play a tactical kicking game in an effort<br \/>\nto gain territory.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The safety first approach meant scoring opportunities were<br \/>\nlimited and it took 17 minutes before Stormers fly-half Peter<br \/>\nGrant kicked a penalty for the first points of the contest.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Cheetahs finally drew level with two minutes left in the<br \/>\nhalf thanks to a close-range penalty from pivot Riaan Smit,<br \/>\nwhich saw the teams go in at the break deadlocked at 3-3.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Stormers dominated territory and possession at the start<br \/>\nof the second half and their cause was given a boost when<br \/>\nCheetahs fullback Willie le Roux was yellow-carded, five minutes<br \/>\nafter the restart, for a professional foul.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Grant kicked the visitors ahead with his second successful<br \/>\npenalty but the Cheetahs, despite being a man down, levelled<br \/>\nagain when Smit kicked a long-range penalty in the 53rd.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Stormers injected some life into the match almost<br \/>\nimmediately from the restart when Grant put in a deft corner<br \/>\nkick that was collected by fullback Gio Aplon who went over<br \/>\nuntouched for a converted try.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BLOEMFONTEIN, July 7 (Reuters) &#8211; The Stormers claimed top spot in the South African Super Rugby conference with a dour 13-6 win over the Cheetahs on Saturday. The victory moved the Stormers to 62 points, eight ahead of the Bulls and Sharks, with one round of league matches to play. The Cape Town-based team missed [&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-12210","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\/12210","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=12210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}