Come Saturday evening, home team Maritzburg College should be best placed of all Grey College’s traditional inter-schools rivals to answer the question:
“Is it better to play Grey at the start of the season or at the end of the long campaign?”
College versus Grey Bloem had been a permanent third term fixture for a number season until now. The match basically shifts almost six months forward from being one of the last few of the season for both schools to just about first on the list.
As always Grey has a very highly rated first team that is expected to put in a strong challenge for top honours in 2017. In the bag already is a convincing 73-18 win against a very respectable Waterkloof team.
The jury is still out on where Maritzburg College will fit into the big picture this year. This early season big test might have already served part of it’s goal for the hosts. Although there are no illusions about how huge the first hurdle is, it has ensured that the College boys are better prepared heading into the 2017 regular season than they were in 2016.
STARTING TEAMS:
| MARITZBURG COLLEGE | GREY COLLEGE | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zuma | 1 | Luke JV Vüren | u18 |
| 2 | Mbatha | 2 | Ru-Hann Greyling | u18 |
| 3 | Dube | 3 | Wihan Marais | u18 |
| 4 | Labuscagne | 4 | DeWet Marais | u17 |
| 5 | Van Der Linde | 5 | Handre Roux | u18 |
| 6 | Mchunu | 6 | Jaap Van Zyl | u18 |
| 7 | Walden | 7 | Marcel Theunissen | u18 |
| 8 | Khanyile | 8 | Arno Nieuwoudt | u18 |
| 9 | Williamson | 9 | Ross Braude | u17 |
| 10 | Truter | 10 | Christopher Schreuder | u18 |
| 11 | Squires | 11 | Marius Kearney | u18 |
| 12 | Walsh | 12 | Wycliff Vlitoor | u17 |
| 13 | Mjara | 13 | Janco Van Heyningen | u18 |
| 14 | Potgieter | 14 | Henk Cilliers | u18 |
| 15 | Willemse | 15 | David Kriel | u18 |
@Smallies:
Wycliff is ‘n goeie speler hopelik kan hy hierdie jaar bietjie ‘n geleentheid kry.
u14A GC 48-3 MC
u15A GC 31-19 MC
u16A GC 48-10 MC
@beet:
9 – Ross Braude
10 – Christopher Schreuder
11 – Marius Kearney
12 – Wycliff Vlitoor
13 – David Kriel
14 – Henk Cilliers
15 – Richard Kriel
@chief:
Wycliff Vlitoor is ook iemand wat gerus dopgehou kan word die jaar, nie so groot soos Rickus nie maar damn hy kan step
@chief: Thanks for the update
@Slam: Yeah the whole JIFF system in France is quite interesting. I learned a bit about it because of former top KZN schools player being in the French Club system.
It’s a kind of a quota which requires 12 out of the 23 players (might increase to 14) in a French Club team to be JIFF players. The aim being to ensure that French players are also developed and not brushed aside by better foreigners.
To qualify as a JIFF a player between the ages of 16 and 21 has to spend at least 3 years in a training academy of a registered professional French Club Rugby team or a player has to have been registered with the French Rugby Union for 5 years before his 21st birthday.
So its of huge benefit to French clubs to have “foreigners” who are qualified as JIFF.
If the allegation were true about the Montpellier Academy I seriously doubt it would change anything about the way Grey operates as a school. All it would mean is that Grey rugby players would be advantaged and perhaps even sort after by French clubs because they would have JIFF status.
But from a French RU perspective it defeats the purpose of what they are trying to achieve by way of ensuring that French players are developed, so I’m sure the will move quickly to eliminate loopholes that allow for the establishment of youth academies outside of French territories.
@beet:
Rikus will be on the bench tomorrow. ??
According to Twitter Grey College is to become a Montpellier Academy. This really would leave a bad taste if it materialised.
For anyone interested here is the Grey Cherries line up for tomorrow
1 Brandon Matthews u17
2 Schalk Vermaak u17
3 Herman Agenbag u17
4 Llwellyn Hendrick u17
5 Hanco Cloete u18
6 Lebo Molefe u18
7 Raynardo Gouveia u17
8 Duncan De Beer u17
9 Dillion Schultz u18
10 Zander Du Plessis u17
11 Hanno Rossouw u18
12 Rocco Steyn u17
13 Hendro Van Der Merwe u18
14 Pieter Smith u17
15 Pienaar Van Niekerk u19
@Smallies: Thanks Smallies. Pity. Now I’ll have to wait for Wildeklawer and Premier Interschools in May to hopefully see both Rikus and Richard in action.
@beet:
Rickus het sy skouer teen waterkloof seer gemaak, weet nie of dit dalk die rede is nie Richard Kriel ook beseer
Well what will be interesting is the games like the 2nd and 3rd team’s as this is usually a sure sign of depth at schoolboy rugby.
@beet: Maybe a blessing after this sweltering heat of late …….could very well influence the hockey, water polo, tennis and golf results
@Speartackle: Match is at 14h00. Weather will be interesting. Forecast points to 16 deg, cold, cloudy, damp maybe rain.
Didnt they use to broadcast this game?
@beet: Yes we seem to forget about all the other sports
@Speartackle: that hockey match you are enquiring about is at 10h20 tomoz
Actually one of the reasons Grey loves playing interschools vs MC is that not only are their enough rugby teams to go around, the day provides a very good yardstick for their hockey.
@Queenian: there are about 9 u17s in the Grey Cherries tho. Hard to say what MC will be like tomorrow
New coach for a start. I think I will have a good idea after tomorrow.
What time is this massacre?
@beet: Not many Under17 boys in the Grey side they had a really good Under16 team last year so we looking at two very good years in a row.
What College looking like.
No Rikus Pretorius for Grey tomorrow by the looks of things.