Picture: Kearsney College Facebook
My sporting highlight of the weekend? ….
Aiden Markram, obviously, and the Jacques Nienaber defence. But closer to home –
thanks to the magic that is SuperSport Schools – two remarkable schools rugby
matches on Saturday, at Kearsney and at Kingswood College, where St Stithians
and St Andrew’s were the guests.
They were both nail-biters, both won with the final move of
the game by the team that was behind. Actually the Kearsney game was restarted
after they took the lead, once the ref had cleared the field of spectators,
but they managed the kick off, and that was that.
Kearsney beat St Stithians 26-25 after Saints had been ahead
for all of the game. It was gutting for the Joburg team but, for me, it was a
fantastic achievement by them. Saints have had their best season in a while.
They are sitting on 60% wins and their losses – to Parktown, St Alban’s,
Pretoria Boys High and, now, Kearsney have all been close.
I, and others who believe in the importance of school rugby as
part of the education of the young people in our community, have been worried
about St Stithians. They stopped playing KES and Jeppe a few years ago now –
quite understandably – and in the case of quite a few other schools who did
that, the next step has been that they cease to exist as a competitive force playing
at a decent level.
Clearly there are people at St Stithians who refuse to allow
that to happen. Their teams are being well coached, the club is being well led
and the boys have responded in the way you’d expect boys at a school with a
proud tradition to do.
A win on Saturday would have been a fine way to make the
point. It didn’t happen, but for me it was heart-warming on a cold day none-the-less.
The other game I watched was the K Day derby – Kingswood vs
St Andrew’s in Makhanda. I’ve been to most of the significant interschool
matches down the years, but I’ve never been to that one. Thanks to SuperSport
School, I was able to get a taste of it. I’ve been told that K Day rivals the Paarl
derby in the way it divides a town in two and that, if either of the schools
had the seating capacity, the crowd at it would not be much smaller.
The two TV commentators were associated with the respective
schools in some way, so they had real knowledge about the players, and the occasion.
They were eloquent and interesting. It really made you feel you were there, a
little bit.
The result went my way, I confess. I spent some time at St
Andrew’s for the Khaya Majola Week a few years ago and the people there are just
so nice. I’ve also not got over my disapproval of Kingswood after reading that Makhanda’s
other school, Graeme College, had broken off all ties with them when they lured some of their talented players away with bursaries and promises.
You know how I feel about that.
Great stuff Theo!
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