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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 Bloemfontein at the weekend and I’d be astonished if the same things didn’t happen there – in my experience the Affies schoolboys are among the most courteous and charming of them all.

The results of the rugby games in those exchanges went overwhelmingly in favour of the home teams. It makes you wonder if a long bus trip, commencing at 5am on Friday, followed by long day and having to sleep in a strange bed that night, doesn’t overly disadvantage the travelling team. Not that you’d want to change the model. This is one of those occasions where the journey really is more important than the destination. I’d hate it if schools started flying their first teams to the other town, because winning the game is so important. 

Still, 70 teachers taking 600 boys on 15 busses to visit friends they met last year, and the year before perhaps, is about as good as it gets. There are lessons learnt all over the place and the scores, while they do matter, aren’t the only thing.

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