My Top 10 for 2025

 

Here's my annual thumb-suck exercise. These are the 10 school sport related things that stood out for me in 2025. It's subjective, based on events I attended - or watched on SuperSports Schools. 

Of course there are others worthy of making the list. I stopped at, 10 though.

1 Let’s get the regulars out of the way first. St Benedict’s won the boys teams competition at the SA Schools Rowing Championships for the 31st consecutive year, and the schools boat race for the 8th year in a row. Just who is going to topple them from their throne remains a mystery.

2 Western Province beat SWD in the “main game” at the Craven. It was their 6^th consecutive unofficial champions title and it took their winning streak at the week to 18 games. The quality of the top rugby schools in the Western Cape (and some them should really be in the Boland) is such that it’s difficult to see them losing any time soon.

3 The Golden Lions XV beat Western Province in the final of the Academy Week. I know WP has two sides in the Craven Week, so they beat the Province C team, but it was third main game win a row, which is quite an achievement. The Lions Craven Week side has performed poorly in all of those three years. Some might say the Lions have a selection problem, I couldn’t possibly comment, of course.

4 The comeback of the King Edward rugby team after a disastrous start to the season was something to observe. The Reds scraped a narrow win over St John’s to start and then blew a 23-6 lead to lose to Jeppe. They then went to Noord-Suid where they lost 102-0 to Paarl Gim, and went down to SACS. Back home, there was another defeat – to Pretoria Boys High - before they turned a corner at their Easter Festival where they beat Rondebosch and looked likely to beat Northwood when the game was called off due to lightning. They were to cause major upsets later on, beating Noordheuwel and Helpmekaar, and they beat Pretoria in the return fixture. There were to be more losses, but they were in very competitive games against good sides. It was a great example of fighting back when people had written you off.

5 The SACS 1^st hockey team was unbeaten, again. They finished the year as the number one ranked team. Rankings are bollocks, I believe, and this case proves that. When SACS were put into 1^st place after one game back from an overseas tour, they were always going to stay there. Their only competition, really, was Jeppe, who they don’t play. Who is to say that Jeppe wouldn’t have beaten or drawn with them?

6 The Affies 1^st rugby team lost to Paarl Boys High and Grey College and drew with Paarl Gim, which, according to the compilers, ranked them third in the land. There’s no question, though that they are the best rugby school in the country by every other measure. They can field the most teams on match day – 30 or more – and they almost never lose a game. I watched them play Jeppe and while their 1^st team had to dig deep to beat a determined Jeppe side, all their other teams won comfortably, including some of their lower open teams playing the 1^st teams of smaller schools.

7 Jeppe hockey teams won all three Southern Gauteng knockout cups, the U19 Aitken, U16 Alan Monk and U15 Boden Trophy. The Aitken Cup win was Jeppe’s their 21^st, the most by any school. The 1^st team was unbeaten in the season – they played 31 games, won 29 and drew two.

8 Two outstanding individual performances. Jason Rowles of St David’s was named the CSA U19 Men's Player of the Year, even though he is still in Grade 11. He made the SA Schools team in 2024 and was Batsman of the Week at the Cubs Week in January. He was co-captain of the SA U19 team during the year. He captained his school to the national playoffs of the inaugural SA Schools T20 competition this year and was named the Central Gauteng Lions U18 Player of the Year.

9 Keegan Cockburn took five wickets off five balls against KES in the 19^th over of the Central Gauteng final of the SA20 competition in November. He finished with figures of 5/7 off four overs, but KES won the game by one wicket, getting the winning runs off the final ball.

10 Central Gauteng won the main games – the U19 girls and boys finals – at the Schools Water Polo SA inter provincial tournament at St David’s in December. Western Province took the overall title, based on medals won in all five age group divisions. Central Gauteng did a great job of organising the event, which involved over 2 000 players and several hundred officials. There were 430 matches played over four days and, despite lighting disruptions and venue changes (sometimes mid-game) on every day, the prize-giving at the end of it was just half an hour late.

11 I said I will limit it to 10. Of course I’ve got an 11^th, simply because we aren’t likely to see anything like this again any time soon. In January there were four St Stithians old boys – Kagiso Rabada, Wiaan Mulder, Ryan Rickelton and Kwena Mapakha – in the same Proteas team in a Test against Pakistan. And now that 19 year-old Lhuan-dre Pretorius is establishing himself in the national teams in all three formats, it’s quite possible that we might have five Saints old boys in one team soon.