Private schools Kearsney and Michaelhouse square off in the big game inside KZN borders today. The Weather is expected to be cold and wet so it remains to be seen who benefits most in these uncharacteristic conditions. Kearsney has manufactured good plays around the fringes and have a reasonably good kick ‘n chase game while House look best when they put the ball through the hands so there is temptation to say that Michaelhouse are underdogs, however based on what happened to Kearsney at Hilton a couple of weeks back, it’s probably better to play one’s cards close to the chest. Crucially Kearsney will be without big tighthead prop Stuart Lacon-Allin again and lock Ryan Lewarne is also not available. Kearsney will however continue to benefit from the return of loose-forward James Miller, who was out of action before the start of the second term. For House the big blow coming in is that talismanic captain and lock Jarryd Kleynhans has been ruled out with injury.
| KEARSNEY | MICHAELHOUSE | |
|---|---|---|
| Nicholas Hudson | 1 | Rocky Knox |
| Dylan Richardson | 2 | Mike MacLeod |
| Greg van Noordwyk (C) | 3 | Aidan Schwartz |
| David Weaver | 4 | Nicholas Llewellen Palmer |
| Jared Meyer | 5 | Grant Haines |
| Luke Croshaw | 6 | Christopher Dowsley |
| James Miller | 7 | Sean Joubert |
| Brady Erlich | 8 | Ross Egberink |
| Warren Driver | 9 | David Pachonick |
| Cameron Ritchie | 10 | Dante Gutu |
| James Sutherland | 11 | Benjamin Strachan |
| Cameron Craze | 12 | Nicholas Herbert(C) |
| Matthew Watts | 13 | Luke Versfeld |
| Reece Daniel | 14 | Kyle Thompson |
| Kyle Mertsch | 15 | James Rowles |
| 16 | Toby Francombe | |
| 17 | Oliver Calvert-Evers | |
| 18 | Luke Jonsson | |
| 19 | Nicholas Kershaw | |
| 20 | Tom Price | |
| 21 | James McCormack | |
| 22 | William Glassock | |
| Stuart Lacon-Allin | OUT | Jarryd Kleynhans |
| Ryan Lewarne | OUT |
A bit of useless information is that Wikipedia states that Hilton is 1080m above sea level while St Charles in Pietermaritzburg is only 596m above. There is about 15km of Town Hill separating the two private schools that play today.
Maritzburg College has an outside chance of upsetting local school SACS today at the Wynberg 175 Festival today. Both schools were at the Kearsney Easter Rugby Festival so would have had a very made very good assessments of each others strengths and weaknesses back then. Helping College further would have been SACS streamed match last Saturday. On Monday College has a potentially easier challenge in the form of hosts Wynberg who have not stood out as much as anticipcated a the start of the season.
DHS has a comparatively easy match against PE township success story Ithembelihle at the Grey PE festival. It’s the quiet before the storm though. Monday seems them play hosts Grey where DHS will have their work cut out to contain both the Grey pack and flashy backline.
Glenwood continue on as part of their tour in Japan.
@Grasshopper: Ja , Ruan Combrink is a great player , should have been a springbok years ago .
House having a bit of a nightmare season to date. Although at senior level I really do think Ruan Combrinck needs to be picked for the Boks, playing so well. I fear Hilton will beat them quite easily in the derby games
@beet: was a great day , KC won all the u14 abc , u15 abc , u16 a c , and most of the open games ….
As the weather was cold and wet most of the day , MHS made a call to send most of there boys back to the school before the 2nds kicked off , so there was only a handful of MHS lads supporting the first team which negates the atmosphere a bit , although the lads that remained were full of spirit .
Incredible win for Kearsney. They played really well. Lots of fine performances. Erlich and Craze my favourites. Brilliant link players who are able to read the game well.
kearsney win 64 22 … Must be a record ?