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It's rugby trials time, and I don't miss the cold

  My school sporting highlight of the week? It’s more a time of year, rather than an event, and I love it because of the memories it stirs: provincial rugby selection season. When the first chills of winter begin to bite, as they have this week, you know the Craven Week trials are on. I spent 10 years on those selection panels and the one consistent memory of those times is that it was bloody cold. On a typical U18 trials day the final game will kick off at around 5.30pm – sunset – and you’d have been on the side of the field in places like Alberton, or Krugersdorp, or, worst of all at UJ, deep in the valley and next to the Westdene Dam, all afternoon, steadily cooling down. We’d whinge, but I used to look forward to it all year, and from year to year.   It wasn’t easy. Trials are definitely not the best way to pick a team and, as the years passed, the task was made more difficult because racial quotas had to be met – it’s much worse now. And you’ll never please everyone, or some
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The wonders of the winter exchange weekends

My sporting highlight of the week? …. There were a couple of those massive “exchanges” this weekend, which saw whole schools, practically, getting on buses and traveling halfway across the country to play traditional rivals who will be coming up to their place next year.  They are major logistical undertakings and they depend on the community at the other end opening their doors and inviting the opponents in to stay for the night on Friday. And, by the nature of the schools involved, the boys do everyone proud by rising to the occasion and showing their class – Jeppe were away at Westville a fortnight ago and they hosted Northwood this weekend and you could’ve cut and pasted the praise heaped on the visitors by the hosts in Durban, and by the Jeppe community today. I know the KES parents are saying the same thing about the Westville boys this weekend, and they get the same response from the College parents when they go to Pietermaritzburg every other year. Affies travelled down to Bloe
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Lots to enthuse about last week

It’s going to be tough deciding on a single highlight of the week gone by, so can I list a couple of what we used to call “briefs” in my newspaper days instead? It’s really about looking out for “gee, that was nice” moments in the area of school sport, mainly, and there were quite a few last week. Peta Kaplan turned 70, and she has been a swimming administrator for most of those years. She ran primary school swimming in Joburg when I met her and then became involved in Usassa and later the Gauteng Education Department as a sports development officer. She drove the agenda of transformation and accessibility to all, hard, which many of those who were running the sport at school level, me included, found uncomfortable. But she was right, of course. She has dedicated her life to sport for children and to swimming in particular. She is a tiny woman but also a giant. Happy birthday Pete. Jeppe put 670 boys and 75 teachers on 15 busses and sent them to Durban to compete against Westvill
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Queen's unexpected win was the highlight of a great school rugby week

  My sporting highlight of the week? …. It’s been rugby all the way and I got excited for various reasons, on Thursday already, about the Muir College vs Parktown game at Grey High, knowing that it was likely to be eclipsed as the long weekend unfolded. Then, on Friday night the Lions beat the Pumas in the Currie Cup. It’s always a highlight for me when they win these days, and that they stopped the defending champions made it more special. But the real stars this week were aways going to be the schoolboys and weren’t there some cracking games? Hilton holding out against nearly 10 minutes of ferocious attack from Michaelhouse to win 20-17 and extend their unbeaten run in the Midlands derby; and Jeppe scoring two tries in the final minute to snatch a draw against Selborne when the game looked gone for them, were two of them. At the Wildekalwer Festival in Kimberley where the big guns were playing, things went pretty much as expected, with no upsets. The Grey College vs Garsfontein
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The Grey High Festival opener - a significant encounter

  Anyone watching the live streaming from the Standard Bank Grey High School Festival? I woke up this morning with a bit of FOMO – I used to go down there in my newspaper days – but thanks to SuperSport Schools you can watch the games from anywhere today – hasn’t that been a game-changer? So, I got to see Parktown Boys’ High play Muir College and there’s an early contender for my highlight of the week right there. It probably won’t get the final nod – not that my whimsical ramblings count for anything at all – there are just too many big games between now and Monday at Grey, and in Kimberley where the “super schools” will be in action at the Wildeklawer Festival. But, for me Parktown vs Muir was a significant encounter in a number of ways. First of all, it was played on the B field at the festival, which is actually Grey’s main cricket oval – The Pollock Field – certainly one of the most beautiful school grounds not to have the Western Cape mountains as its backdrop. I’ve watch
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Another derby, another great day, much like the last one

  Much of what I’m going to say here I said last year this time. That sort of repetition used to be a no-no, back when I was newspaper reporter. But I’m not one anymore, and what I experienced on Saturday at the King Edward VII School vs Jeppe High School for Boys rugby derby at KES was so similar to what happened at Jeppe in April last year, that you really couldn’t tell the story differently this time around. Anyone who was there – and anyone else in Joburg who might have wanted to go to the game wouldn’t have found a spot to watch it from any way – was treated to the same spectacle; a riot of colours (mainly red), a cacophony from the stands and, on the field, the same passion and commitment and skills levels. Those skills, admittedly were less than perfectly executed at times, but if you are going to hold that against those 17 and 18-year olds, under that pressure, in that cauldron, then you were obviously not one of the 9 000-odd people shoe-horned into the school on Saturday.
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Meeting old friends has been the highlight of the weekend

  My school sports highlight of the weekend? …. The rugby festivals, obviously.   Everything about them, really, but in particular, for me, seeing some familiar faces, men and women who have spent much of their lives in service of sport at schools. There are too many to list them all, but I know there will be no offence taken if I’ve left someone out. I spoke of the guys in the KES Festival office the other day, Derron van Eeden, Neil Darroch and Ian Sim – people with weighty jobs over the festival weekend – but always gracious and courteous in all their dealings with everyone. And while I was at KES I saw Tinus Diedericks, the Golden Lions Schools Rugby chairman, Brad Ireland and Ian Rickelton, long-termers at St David’s, Hans Coetzee – a rugby coaching legend in these parts, and from the school cricket world, Niels Momberg, who is commentating on SuperSport Schools. Down the road at St John’s, I had a word with Arnold Geerdts, who has been the announcer there for the last 15 years in
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