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Kearsney ready to kick start the year 2013

21 February, 2013 beet 9

Kearsney will head into their first major contact session of 2013 without a number of their stalwarts. Just like Tier 1 opponents College and Westville, the overlap of the rugby pre-season with the summer sports calendar has resulted in a number of first choice players  not being made available for these warm-up games. This along with injuries sees Kearsney travel to the Voortrekker Rugby Night Series in Pietermaritzburg for a match against locals College without the likes of their SA Schools duo of Dan and JL du Preez, highly rated Ayron Schramm, playmaker Tyler Smith, the ever-reliable decision-maker Tristan Tedder and strongly-built Guy Francis.…

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Northwood names new headmaster

21 February, 2013 beet 0

Tony Jordan recently retired after 39 years of teaching service, over 25 of which was spent at Northwood. His replacement as headmaster at Northwood is a big rugby fan which bodes well for the school and school rugby in KwaZulu-Natal in general. Here is the newsletter confirming the new appointment.…

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Bulls scout on early business trip to the Cape

21 February, 2013 beet 21

Blue Bulls scout Xander Janse van Rensburg, who is known to travel the length and breadth of South Africa during the school rugby season in search of talent to sign up for the Loftus based team and the University of Pretoria, is in the Western Cape at the moment. Since the local school season is still weeks away from kicking off, his much earlier than anticipated trip down south has a number of loyal Province officials feeling a bit uncomfortable. …

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Sergeal needs to bring on the Brent Russellness

20 February, 2013 beet 2

Not too much enthusiasm is expected to come Kings Super Rugby campaign this season but they do have one of the brightest most exciting young prospects on their books and they intend to use him. Grey High and SA Schools 2012 wing Sergeal Petersen has been selected to start for the Kings in their first ever Super Rugby match against the Western Force on Saturday 23 February. The youngster Super Rugby player of all times was the Force’s former star James o’Connor at 17 years 288 days so that record is not under threat but at 18 years and 206 days, Peterson is still pretty much a baby in a competition in which the average age of the local Saffa squad players is still close to 26.…

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KZN Top Schools Rugby Festival

19 February, 2013 beet 103

The Sharks have put out a newsletter to confirm that it is all systems go for their inaugural KZN Top Schools Rugby Festival. The date for the event is 06 March. The venue is Kings Park. The 10 participating schools are Clifton, DHS, George Campbell, Glenwood, Kearsney, Maritzburg College, Northwood, Pionier, Port Natal and Westville. The promise made by the KZNRU: “this festival is going to become a successful and enjoyable addition to KZN’s sporting calendar”. The interpretation is that it is here to stay.…

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Grey PE & Kingswood: possible Super Rugby curtain raiser

18 February, 2013 beet 29

Now that the Kings are established as a new Super Rugby franchise it brings about new opportunities. One such initiative undertaken is to build better ties with the schools within its system in the hopes of developing a feeder system and thereby fulfilling the promise of developing players from the region into fully fledged home grown professional rugby players one day. As a result Grey High School of Port Elizabeth and Kingswood from Grahamstown are being lined up as a possible curtain raiser to the Kings versus Chiefs match on Saturday 15 March at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.…

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Varsity Cup Young Guns gets underway

18 February, 2013 beet 12

The Varsity Cup under-20 competition known as the Young Guns kicks off this afternoon. Tuks beat Maties in an exciting final last year. On paper both teams are again looking like the two strongest teams in the competition this year. Maties will not be in action today but the Tuks have a relatively difficult assignment at the University of the Free State. Both teams are fielding a number of players that did provincial duty in the 2012 ABSA under-19 competition. In the only other first round game the Trojans from UCT hosts NMMU.…

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SARU Press release: New scrum laws for schools & club rugby in SA

18 February, 2013 beet 0

New scrum Laws to make amateur rugby safer will come into effect at club and schools level as the season gets underway this month, following an initiative introduced by the South African Rugby Union (SARU). A new scrum engagement sequence has been devised for amateur rugby to minimise the risks of serious injury suffered in this facet of play. …

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Good start for Westville

18 February, 2013 beet 23

Westville got their 2013 rugby campaign off to a winning start with victories at the Voortrekker Rugby Night Series in Pietermaritzburg on Friday evening. In poor weather their 1St XV defeated Maritzburg College 10-5 followed by their 2nd XV recording a 21-7 win against the Voortrekker 1st XV.…

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Maritzburg College team for Voortrekker Night Series opener

15 February, 2013 beet 14

Maritzburg College has a pre-season game against Westville scheduled for this evening at 18h30 as part of the Voortrekker Rugby Night Series. Just like last year a number of players are not available mainly because of summer sports commitment. There are however still good indications of first choices in various positions provided by some of the team selections made for this evening’s game.…

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A first look at Westville teams for 2013

15 February, 2013 beet 72

It’s still early days and Westville like all other schools competing at this time of the year are using game time as part of their preparations for the regular season. One imagines that there is a fair amount of tweaking to be done and a few players are still unavailable due to other commitments. Nevertheless their 1st XV and 2nd XV selections for tonight’s Voortrekker Night Series makes for interesting reading.The games on are Westville 1st XV vs Maritzburg College at 18h30 and Westville 2nd XV vs Voortrekker 19h30. …

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Voortrekker Rugby Night Series Fixtures 2013

14 February, 2013 beet 2

Voortrekker has organised a night series tournament along similar lines to the one they arranged last year. This year’s event takes place at the school itself where their their new floodlights will be put to the test. KZN tier-1 teams College, Kearsney and Westville (fielding two teams) will once again be in attendance.…

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Damelin Night Series: Port Natal beats Northwood 8-7

13 February, 2013 beet 8

With Northwood’s first assignments of the KZN Tier-1 season being March dates with Kearsney on their lush green Reece-Edwards pitch in Durban North followed by Michaelhouse up at the Meadows in Balgowan, they might well have been tipped to cause an early season upset or possibly even two.  The six pre-season games at the Damelin Night Series provides an excellent lead up to these two regular season games against opponents who are expected to have had less match practice and should therefore be a little cold coming into those Northwood games. …

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9 KES cricketers struck by lightning

12 February, 2013 beet 41

 

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DHS and Glenwood back on

12 February, 2013 beet 66

Some good news. DHS has put their differences with Glenwood aside and all fixtures between the Durban neighbours have been reinstated with immediate effect.…

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NWU-PUK-Rugbyinstituut Skole Skouspel 2013

12 February, 2013 beet 46

The NWU-PUK-Rugbyinstituut Skole Skouspel brings together a unique collection of schools from around South Africa every year, including some of the teams that general end up being hot contenders for Top 20 rankings spots during the season. The teams are usually well matched resulting in some good contests.…

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Damelin Night Series: Port Natal clinches late winner against George Campbell

10 February, 2013 beet 22

In-form and unbeaten Port Natal moved a big step closer to securing a place in this year’s Damelin Night Series thanks to an after the hooter goal against George Campbell. Trailing 22-17 with time up on the clock, the White Knights carried the ball from halfway to over the try-line via a series of phases that showed a huge amount of character.…

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KZN Tier-2 suffers under new SARU age-banding

10 February, 2013 beet 127

One of the first questions that came up when the new SARU age-band rules were implemented was what effect will it have on the smaller schools in KwaZulu-Natal. The ruling which comes into effect this year prohibits all under-16 players from playing in under-19 (open age-group) games, something that was allowed up until the end of the 2012 season. Many of the KZN Tier-2 schools do not field an under-16 age group. Players go directly from under-15 to the open age-group. …