When it comes to rugby, the University of Stellenbosch (Maties) has a long and proud history. They have produced 172 Springboks and 15 Springbok captains. To this day, their students form the nucleus of the Stormers, the Western Province senior and under-21 teams as well as the Vodacom Cup team.…
Silly season is nearing its completion and soon all questions about where the various school teams actually fit into the big picture will start to be answered. When it comes to pre-season discussions about who will be top of the pile in the Western Cape, conversations don’t often progress much further than a chat about what the outcomes will be in the intense and pulsating games between Paarl Boys High (HJS), Paarl Gim and Paul Roos.…
How Michaelhouse will fare during the 2013 season remains a bit of an enigma. Those that have followed the progress of the team will know they have the right ingredients for a meaty pack of forwards. Their power in the forwards should be most obvious come scrum-time. Here they could prove to be very hard to contain.…
Old Queenian Murray Basset has been handed the head coaching reigns at 154 year old Queens College. Basset has been the first team assistant coach for three years now, working alongside former head coach John Duncan.…
Tragically a Newcastle Gr.11 schoolboy has passed away as a result of an injury sustained during a trial match on Tuesday. The accident is being investigated but it’s believed that he sustained a fatal neck injury after being tackled.…
With first choice outside centre Justin Geduld’s withdrawal from the SA under-20 squad so that he can join the Blitzbokke for a Sevens trip to New Zealand, good money should have been on Westville old boy Tyler Fisher to slot into the starting line-up. It’s not the case. Coach Dawie Theron has opted to go with Sylvian Mahuza instead. …
It’s clear that just like everyday technology, rugby professionalism at schools is not about to wait for anyone. Hardest hit may be those who resist change. …
The good news is that the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport has reported that more 100 schools in South Africa have agreed to do drug testing and that the first five tests per school will be on the house. However thereafter it could cost between R2800 and R3000 per internationally approved test. …
42-year old former provincial flyhalf and Dale Old Boy Luke Smith is the new coach at Dale College. Smith takes over from the school’s legendary coach Griffy Griffiths who has moved to Hamiltons Club in Cape Town. Interestingly Smith like Griffiths also played in an unbeaten Dale side in 1990. …
Months after the initial Glenwood/Westville rugby fallout was blogged here on Schoolboyrugby.co.za, it has made the front page of a local KZN morning paper. Although it is not a new story, for many not close to school rugby in the province it will come as a huge shock to find out that two of KZN’s biggest schools don’t have any first term fixtures against each other on the cards as well as no rugby match in 2013.…
The South African under-18 Sevens team beat the hosts Australia 22-7 to claim the gold medal in Sydney. This was a good achievement by our schoolboys. Based on the international rugby standings of the countries that participated the SA team was always on track to win either gold or silver. …
Coach Dawie Theron was a satisfied man on Friday evening after his SA under-20 Baby Bok team recorded an easy 65-7 win against the University of the Western Cape. …
There are several choice words to describe incidents involving school rugby players leave one high school to join another. “Poached”, “bought” and “stolen” are amongst the more popular ones used by unhappy supporters of the school losing a good player. It goes without saying that these same terms scarcely ever come out of the mouths of those who welcome the new player into their stable.…
Okay so the Lance Armstrong story is not exactly rugby but there is one or two connections to be made. …
Dawie Snyman Sr is the new Paul Roos Gymnasium assistant coach. Snyman coached Western Province to five consecutive Currie Cup final victories between 1982 and 1986. He’ll now be applying his wisdom and vast experience as the backline coach, a support role to newly promoted head coach Hein Kriek.…
There have been plenty of changes at the KwaZulu-Natal Tier-1 rugby schools over the last few years. Here is a list of coaches both past and present.…
During an already turbulent period for the Border region’s school rugby, Hudson Park head coach Dru Nass looks set to leave in order to take up the post of DHS Head of Rugby in Durban. Nass will become the third coach of the four largest Border region rugby schools to part the scene in recent months.…
Pretty soon all the schools would have reopened for 2013. There is quite a bit of excitement about as high schools welcome their new Gr.8 students. Amongst them many talented sportsmen including school sports bursary award recipients and Craven Week representatives. No doubt there new schools will hope they are able to continue to stand out on the sports fields from now until 2017, when they matriculate.…
With the coastal schools returning to school this week, the school cricket fixture list for this weekend looks to be jam-packed. Any updates or the compiling of news on which teams are doing what, be it scoring runs or taking wickets or both would be appreciated. Hopefully mother nature gives the boys a break and we have some dry Saturdays and other match days.…
Michaelhouse’s star Bruce Arnott has been ruled out for the best part and maybe even the entire 2013 season. The right wing whose outstanding performances during 2012 helped his school claim top spot in KwaZulu-Natal picked up a knee (ACL) injury last week.…
For eight standout 18-year-old rugby players a new chapter in their lives is about to begin. Every year the Sharks only contract between 8 and 12 players. These players are carefully picked based on two criteria, the players’ individual rugby ability and the future needs of the Union. Yes, the Sharks don’t necessarily go after the best players on the board, they actually try to work out where their future senior team positional needs will lie and plan succession on this basis. …
The junior player development body of the Sharks is the Sharks Academy. The Academy has an outstanding track-record and has been held in high regard in South African rugby circles for many a year. However the advent and growing popularity of the Varsity Cup, allegations of the Shark Academy being operated primarily as a profit making entity and the highly publicised spending spree of main opponents the Blue Bulls has started to raise more and more questions about the viability of the Sharks Academy. …
The Border schools Selborne, Dale and Queens have produced their fair share of rugby talent over the years. Usually these players complete their schooling first and then leave the region to make names for themselves playing top level rugby at other big provinces. There have been times when boys have left Border for schools in other regions under controversial circumstances. With news filtering through that the Bulls have persuaded a promising Grant Khomo Week 2012 player who also featured at the SA HP u16 training camp to move to Pretoria, this has to be classified as one of those controversial situations.…
I was touched by a sad story today. Basically a boy attends a school for four years, represents their A-team in the junior age-groups. He works his butt off to fulfil a four year long dream of playing for the first team in his fifth and final year. Now just days before the first term is about to start he finds out that his school has just-just recruited a brand new highly rated player in his position. This new guy will probably start ahead of him. Hopefully this has a happy ending somehow but for now the dream of a good kid filled with lots of school spirit is potentially crushed. …
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