Opinions on Kearsney 45-6 Northwood match

Top-notch official

There is never a shortage of complaints about referees and very few praises for the ones who do outstanding work. Having even seen top international refs make one or two visual errors while handling school matches, I appreciate how hard it is to be as perfect as a large sector of the rugby-loving public expects/demands and how dependent good international refs are on comms from well qualified assistant refs. So well done to Wayne Muller who did a great job officiating this Northwood-Kearsney match. He came across as a well as any international ref could have hoped to. I can’t profess to know much about many of school referees around SA but I’m quite certain that right now Wayne must be up there amongst the very best operating weekly at this level and KZN SBR supporters should be pleased when he’s assigned to handle one of their important matches.

Unpleasant injury incident

During the first half the Northwood right wing Mvelo Mhlangeni who is normally a demon tackler appeared to have been knocked out when his head made contact with the leg of a Kearsney ball-carrier during an attempted tackle that went wrong. He lay motionless for a while. Play was halted so that he could receive proper professional medical assistance. This lasted a good few minutes before the player got up and returned to his position. Surely with new safety precautions in place, just like in the case of senior professionals, the player should have been forced to leave the field of play, undergo a regulation concussion test where the medical verdict delivered would have deemed him unfit to continue playing this match or any other contact sport for at least a couple of weeks?

FNB Classic Clashes one-sided prematch documentary

I’m truly grateful to FNB Classic Clashes for their longstanding commitment to SBR and hope this partnership with schools and rugby remains mutually beneficial so that it can continue for many years to come. However I must admit that I prefer Premier Interschools’ attempt to offer equal exposure to both competing schools on the day as part of their prologue. FNB CC dedicated the entire 5-minutes to Northwood. Maybe there were good reasons for this?

Bizarre moments of the match

I imagine that an outside centre (in this case Northwood’s Tyren Kroos of the Netherlands) being constantly used in the lineout forward is something that would take a few seasons to go by before a similar re-enact occurred. It’s a most usual coaching decision. If I see a prop dropping back into the pocket to take a drop-goal this season, I’ll probably say to myself: “oh well I saw Northwood use a centre at lineout time!”

Northwood scrumhalf Hugo Scholler (also from the Netherlands) looked like a decent player who might catch the eye in a stronger team. His embarrassing moment (which I’m sure he’ll look back and have a good laugh about with his mates when it’s no longer so classified as “serious”) was when his attempted box kick clearance from under the crossbar, ricocheted off the bar and landed on the side of the in-goal area, allowing Kearsney’s prop Matt Heard to score a soft try. That’s not something you’ll see very often in a lifetime of watching rugby.

Knights’ courage

Realistically there is no getting away from it, Northwood will be under the cosh this season. That said, their first half performance against Kearsney that resulted in them changing ends at just 12-3 down (it could easily have been 7-3), was worthy of much admiration for the spirit with which they played. It’s hard to fault any team that shows that much heart and I hope they can continue in this vein, as it will win them a lot of support amongst neutrals. They didn’t stop trying in the second half but just couldn’t keep up that same first half level of defensive intensity required to halt Kearsney’s progress.

Knight’s sportsmanship

Objectionable pro soccer-like injury faking to milk penalties and cards has crept into senior rugby. Coaches and kids often take their cue cards from senior rugby. So when Northwood fullback Stratten Kennedy was tip-tackled in a yellow card resulting offence near the Kearsney try-line, how inspiring it was to see him get up and then even initiate the gesture to embrace his offence committing opponent. The spirit of good sportsmanship : character for Northwood School to be proud of.

Kearsney’s non-peripheral vision

In the end it was a comfortable 45-3 win for Kearsney. The wind was factor and it is still only mid-March, hardly the time of the season when any team is peaking. All-in-all it was entertaining to watch rugby for Maroon supporters with just a few glitches but the commentators picked up on these. Well-known commentator Gavin Cowley even used the term “peripheral vision” to describe the correctable problem. In this respect the Kearsney 2017 team has started their season in more or less the same fashion as the 84% winning 2016 team. At some point during the 2016 season the 1^st XV clicked big time. They went from being this XV that would do ever so well to generate opportunities and then let themselves down by poor ball-in-hand decision making to a unit that remarkably hardly made a single wrong run/kick/pass decision and their distribution be it regular passing/in-tackle offloading/out the back of the hand flicks was of a high quality. Granted they had some skilful link players to help pull this off. More incredible might be the fact that two forwards oriented coaches headed up the team :-). I’ve not sure if it can still be found online, but there is really good concise write up on Kearsney’s rugby history dating back to 1942 (details of teams from 1920’s to 1941 excluded). Overall it’s a modest rugby history. I know that in terms of win records, there were more successful teams than 2016 in Kearsney’s past but I can’t imagine that the college produced a team more capable of playing appealing to watch rugby that the 2016 1^st XV. The class of 2017 has to try and find that same path to success, the one where the weighting between individual brilliance and team objectives work in tandem and don’t somehow compromise each other or impact negatively on the scoresheet.

Standout players

Kearsney No.8 Dylan Richardson continues to prove why he’s regarded as one of the best in the country this year. Tighthead prop Matt Heard had an outstanding match which included a couple of telling passes and his frontrow partner Ross Parsons also did some good things in open play. Ross Taylor is a mobile and physical lock who gets through heap of hard work but also gets noticed for his deft hands. Kearsney has been blessed with an unbroken succession of talented flyhalves closing in on a decade now – young pivot Jacques Odendaal once again enjoyed a lot of time on the ball and continues to tick many boxes. Fullback James Sutherland is the best offensive weapon Kearsney have had at the back since their Craven Week player Chris Lines wore the no.15 jersey in 2013.

Northwood Lock Daan Hoogwerf (yes Netherlands) who had to make the step up after a long-term injury to former Pumas Grant Khomo lock Mtho Mondlane last weekend, put in a good shift and was arguably the overachiever of the match.