Northwood beats Parktown 19-10

Northwood recorded a meaningful victory against strong opposition when they defeated Parktown in an error-riddled match on Reece-Edwards field, Durban North on Sunday.

Both teams struggled to really get going with poor handling and bad decision-making being mainly to blame.

Parktown lifted their profile amongst KZN school rugby followers quite significantly after coming close to beating local powerhouses Westville and Maritzburg College at the Jeppe 125th Festival in Johannesburg last weekend. They further enhanced their reputation with a convincing 34-10 win against on Friday. However a fourth reasonably tough game in a little over a week seemed to take its toll. Nothing went right for Parktown during a frustrating game for the team. They had quite a bit of possession but cohesion was not good resulting in very small ground gains if any and even fewer scoring opportunities. Their only try came when prop Derron Solomon crashed over for in the second half during the first of two sustained redzone attacks. Flyhalf Ethan Frasca added the conversion to a first half penalty.

Lineouts were a disaster for Northwood. Their scrum gained ascendency as the game went on and their tackling was again very good as Parktown struggled to find gaps from which to build attacks.

Northwood’s best moments came in the first half when they were able to get the ball wide on the right. Here their quick outside centre Pikho Sobhale combined very well with attention-grabbing right wing Luanda Mngadi. The latter was the catalyst for both Sobhale’s tries before he scored one of his own using an effective over the top kick and superior pace chase to collect favourably bouncing ball.

Northwood fullback Jadon Stevens and left wing Jason Daniels also did very well when given opportunities to run.

A real treat was listening Parktown’s band who along with their spirited junior players in the stand provided outstanding non-stop support throughout the 1st XV game. Well done to them. They were a very good advert for Parktown.