Pirates 20-13 Heathens
Buzz Pirates have become the first team to defeat champions elect Heathens in the Rugby Premiership.
Bobby Musinguzi’s charges, who defeated defending champions Kobs last weekend, made light work of Heathens at Legends Rugby Grounds Friday evening.
Scrumhalf Conrad Wanyama started the day with a well converted penalty to hand the hosts an early lead inside the first five minutes of the game.
Pirates were in charge and forced the visitors into errors before they were punished for being offside. Aaron Ofoirwoth converted for Heathens first points on the board to level matters before Wanyama missed a chance to give Pirates the lead again.
The lead was regained when Wanyama punished Allan Otim for hands in the rack.
Pirates remained in charge and flyhalf Ivan Magomu picked up Marvin Odong with a superb cross kick in the left hand corner.
Odong fumbled with the ball but managed to avoid knocking it forward. He offloaded it to a charging Ronald Tumusiime who crossed the white chalk for the game’s first try.
Wanyama made no mistake with the extras to give second placed Pirates a 10-point cushion (13-03).
Pirates defended their line for the last minute of the first half to hold off the pressure and go into the halftime break with a 10-point lead.
Heathens introduced prop Asuman Mugerwa at the start of the second half to re-enforce the tight five but the Pirates pack had him in check for the 40 minutes.
Ofoirwoth converted a penalty and missed the other to reduce the lead to 7 points before the hosts were awarded a penalty try to stretch the lead to 20-06.
Magomu took the kicking role after Wanyama was replaced with Brian Ochan and the number 10 missed the chance of further extending the lead.
With their first loss of the season looming, Heathens started piling more pressure and their efforts were rewarded with a try by scrumhalf Faizal Gamma and Ofoirwoth converted to reduce the deficit to 7 points but there wasn’t any more time for a comeback.
It was Pirates’ second successive win of the season having humbled Kobs 18-12 last Saturday.