Black Pirates make good on promise to offer a third way
What you need to know:
- The two have something remotely close to a telepathic understanding that was worked up when they played schools rugby together.
- The team’s back three also has such an intense chemistry so much so that it is no wonder that Pirates always dominates possession, reducing its opponents to counterparts.
Black Pirates started the second round of the Nile Special Rugby Premiership just as they ended the first - on a winning note. The wins over Makerere Impis and Betway Kobs - both pulled off on a Friday evening - attracted strikingly different adjectives.
While the conquest of Impis was a humdrum routine of work, toppling Kobs two Fridays ago was pretty much a statement of intent.
The Sea Robbers were desperately unlucky not to claim a bonus point win after a stunning second half performance saw them run in two tries and come within a minute of holding Kobs scoreless.
Bobby Musinguzi seems to be entirely coherent in his vision for Pirates. The team thrives on the quick ball and in the fit-again Isaac Rujumba have a gain-line breaker.
Floundering Kobs
Before the league kicked off, this column backed Pirates to offer the third way that will shatter the Heathens-Kobs duopoly fans have over the years grown accustomed to.
Kobs developed a rousing style of play in the first round that camouflaged their lack of depth.
Losses against Heathens and Pirates have, however, drilled a chink in the club’s armour, showing how counterproductive it can be to rely on individual brilliance.
After falling 28-11 at the hands of Pirates, Kobs skipper Brian Asaba was quick to point to the absence of ‘experience on the pitch’.
It would have been an okay excuse had his side not been well-beaten by the swashbuckling approach of a young if inexperienced Pirates side.
It is easy to forget that Pirates have been forced to make do without the experienced pair of hands of Dennis Etuket and Marvin Odongo.
Intelligent shuffling
Musinguzi has instead shuffled his troops intelligently, relying on a bench packed with a bunch of exuberant youngsters.
In Ivan Magomu and Conrad Wanyama, the Sea Robbers have the league’s leading pair of half-backs.
The two have something remotely close to a telepathic understanding that was worked up when they played schools rugby together.
The team’s back three also has such an intense chemistry so much so that it is no wonder that Pirates always dominates possession, reducing its opponents to counterparts.
They will surely take some stopping!
