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The games are on, for now .....




Interschool rugby fixtures got going at the weekend, under the shadow of a looming Covid-19 third wave and with many school rugby people, I’m sure, quite pessimistic about the odds of all school sport being called off by departmental decree should the rise in new infections suddenly take off again.

We can debate the wisdom of that and wonder if the educational value of school sport is being taken into consideration when those decisions are made, but in the end the authorities, and schools, are going to err on the side of caution and that’s what they should do, I guess.

There were fixtures called off last weekend – three in Gauteng, that I know of – and in all three cases there were a few isolated positive tests among sport-playing boys. There were no widespread infections, but I agree that there was an unacceptable risk of asymptomatic virus carriers going to another school and spreading it there.

It’s a reality that we are going to have to live with, certainly all of this year and probably next year too. How it’s going to be managed needs to be worked out. I don’t know how that will be done, but I do believe that closing rugby down completely is not the answer. As Donald Trump said in a rare moment of lucid wisdom: Let’s not make the cure worse that the disease itself.

In spite of all that, there were rugby matches played on Saturday, with some great action and a few standout results. The ban on spectators has certainly accelerated innovation, ingenuity and entrepreneurship in the field of live-streaming and, after watching the Jeppe vs Rand Park match (where my privileged role as the school’s sports photographer got me into the ground), I was able to watch two other games live streamed and, I believe, there are ways of getting to see recordings of some of the others. These sorts of things are here to stay now, I think. It took the major disruption of Covid to get people thinking and acting differently. I’m hoping that this will apply to other aspects of the way rugby is run at schools too.

I wrote in this space last week that those who were writing off the schools in the interior of the country and handing the crown of supremacy to the Western Cape schools on the evidence of two festivals at which all the teams, supposedly, were playing their first games in a year, might be a little premature.

Grey College lost to Paarl Gim at the Affies Festival and were being written of by a few foolish ones. Boy, did they bounce back on Saturday, thrashing the other Paarl School, Boys’ High, 37-3. I wouldn’t bet on them losing too many other games this year. Monument lost to Stellenberg and to the same Boys’ High last weekend but, by all accounts, they were very impressive in beating Waterkloof 24-14 in a Virseker Trophy 1st round clash.

In the Eastern Cape, St Andrew’s of Grahamstown have put their hands up early. They beat Grey High by a single point on Saturday and they have already won their big derby – 35-19 against Kingswood – played, bizarrely, as their 1st game of the season. Selborne beat Queens 32-10, so there are a few big games coming up, hopefully, in that part of the country.

In KZN, there were wins for Maritzburg College, Glenwood and Hilton. Michaelhouse drew first blood in the big inland private schools rivalry down there, beating Kearsney 26-24.

Down in the Cape, Paarl Gim showed that they really are the real deal this year by comfortably beating Paul Roos Gimnasium. Bishops and Wynberg recorded wins over SACS and Rondebosch, firing the first shots in the unofficial Cape Town Southern Suburbs challenge series.

The Virseker Cup competition, as I said, has started and the first big surprise was the one-point win for Marais Viljoen over Helpmekaar. There were comfortable wins for Garsfontein and EG Jansen.

King Edward has a daunting first outing against Affies and came out of it with a lot of credit, going down 15-11. The Jeppe vs Pretoria Boys’ High game was one of those called off and Jeppe were able to get Rand Park instead. Rand Park stepped up and gave Jeppe quite scare initially. They led 7-0 for much of the 1sthalf before conceding two quick tries to go behind 14-7 at the break. Jeppe found their feet in the second half and scored three more unanswered tries to win 33-7, but Rand Park never gave up and came close to scoring more than once.

Stellenberg, fresh from their impressive showing at the season-opening festivals met another of the stars of that opening weekend, Oakdale, and were beaten 33-19.

Next weekend, God willing, Grey College travel to Pretoria Affies, while the Paarl schools and Paul Roos all play against Southern Suburbs schools. The big Virseker Cup clashes are Monument vs Garsfontein and Menlo Park vs Waterkloof.

In the light of the probable early stop to the season, schools will do well to begin doubling up and playing as many games as they can before that happens. Jeppe are doing that and have arranged a game against Die Anker from the Vaal Triangle on Wednesday. The scheduled clash between KES and Pretoria Boys’ next Saturday looks doubtful at this stage.

Selected Results:

Affies 15 KES 11; Jeppe 33 Rand Park 7; Northcliff 15 St Benedict’s 12; Monument 24, Waterkloof 14; Garsfontein 48 HTS Middelburg 0; Marais Viljoen 32 Helpmekaar 31; Nelspruit 21 Menlo Park 21; HTS Drostdy 26 Boland Landbou 19; Oakdale 33 Stellenberg 19; Paarl Gim 25 Paul Roos Gim 10; Grey College 37 Paarl Boys High 3; Bishops 29 SACS 22; Wynberg 19 Rondebosch 5; Maritzburg College 34 DHS 10; Gelnwood 13 Westville 3; MIchaelhouse 26 Kearney 24; Hilton 31 Northwood 6; Selborne 32 Queens 10; Grens 22 Dale 20; St Andrew’s 26 Grey High 22.

 

Next Weekend (we hope):

Affies vs Grey College; St John’s vs Parktow; Jeppe vs St David’s; KES vs Pretoria Boys’ High; Monument vs Garsfontein; Menlo Park vs Waterkloof; Noordheuwel vs Marais Viljoen; Helpmekaar vs EG Jansen; Bishops vs Paul Roos; Boland Landbou vs SACS; Rondebosch vs Paarl Boys’ High; Stellenberg vs Strand; Clifton vs Maritzburg College; Hilton vs DHS; Glenwood vs St Charles; Northwood vs Kearsney; Westville vs Michaelhouse; Northwood vs Kearsney; Queens vs Grey High; Kingswood vs Hudson Park; St Andrew’s vs Marlow.

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