Skip to main content

A weekend of surprises

 

Picture: Rondebosch Boys' High Facebook

There were some unexpected, to say the least, results in Saturday’s 1st team rugby matches across the country. Several teams have shown that there is perhaps no reason to believe that the pre-Covid pecking order in SA schools rugby will continue, as of right. Their performances at the weekend have added extra spice to next weekend’s Wildeklawer Festival at which just about all the top schools will be appearing.

The consistent top four over the years, Grey College, Paarl Boys’ High, Paarl Gimnasium and Paul Roos Gimnasium were all shocked. Paarl Gim’s 2022 is supposed to be their “dream team” and they certainly started off the year that way. They beat Monument and Glenwood easily earlier on and looked to be on a roll. Affies, on the other hand had a few good wins, but then went down to Garsfontein for the 1st time ever. They were not the favourites on Saturday, but won 29-26.

Grey College don’t lose very often and they didn’t on Saturday. But they were held to a 17-all draw by Oakdale, the little agricultural school from Riversdal who they have never lost to.

Paul Roos Gim also drew – 38-all with Bishops. Bishops did win this annual fixture in 2021, but their previous victory before that was back in 2009. Bishops has had a great season so far, which included a 31-20 win over Outeniqua at the Grey High festival. The seem to have regained the old running rugby flair that served them well in the past.

The biggest shock was at Paarl Boys’ High where Rondebosch beat the home side for the first time since 1997. Boys’ High have been either one or two on the ranking list for the last 10 years but, following a 19-all draw with Garsfontein on the North-South weekend, you have to wonder if they too can have “one of those years”.

Another notable win, but not such surprise given their results in the run up, was Durban High School’s 38-14 win over Maritzburg College. It was, however, their biggest away win over College ever.

In other weekend action, Westville, with its gigantic pack, beat Jeppe 15-0, Pretoria Boys’ High made KES work hard for their 31-25 win, Queen’s beat Dale 20-13 in the home leg of their double-header derby, and Monument beat Nelspruit 38-16.

Next weekend is the Wildeklawer Festival. As mentioned, last weekend’s results have piqued interest in a number of the fixtures. Oakdale meet Affies, for instance, on Saturday, while Grey College take on Paarl Gim and Monument face Paarl Boys’ High on Monday.

There is another festival next weekend, the Selborne 125th Anniversary. Rondebosch are there and they play Grey High on Monday.

One of the country’s biggest local derbies is on Saturday (it’s 1st leg) at Hilton College, when Michaelhouse are the guests. It’s a game that brings to whole KZN Midlands region to a halt.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more