WP “Premier League” about to kick off

The only thing official about the WP Premier League is that it is officially tough. The competition is hot down south. Quality players make for quality teams. As a result, well the analysis of the Super Rugby players’ schools attended  says it all, the region produces more professional rugby players than any other in South Africa. It’s an annual norm but worth mentioning once more that several WP schools will hold down national Top 20 places come the end of the season. April is just a week old and already several Cape schools have taken up residence near the top of the rankings.

Paarl Gim made a clean sweep of three of KZN’s best schools for 2013 during the recent Kearsney Easter Rugby Festival and looks to be the leaders of WPPL pack at this stage. They are however not involved in a local inter-schools fixture this coming weekend. Neither are their great rivals Paarl Boys High. Boishaai will instead be involved in one of the clashes of the season when they host Outeniqua of George at Brugstaat.

With two of the Paarl heavyweights playing opponents from outside the League, it paves the way for the Wynberg versus Rondebosch game to be the League match of the day. Both schools are in form and have made impressive starts to the year. Their respective results so far indicate that they are right up there alongside the best rugby schools in the country but deciding who is the better of the two has not been easy up until now, meaning that once the final whistle blows on Saturday at Hawthornden Field, Wynberg’s home ground there will at last be a measure of greater certainty.

Not far behind and definitely right up there in terms of quality, is the much anticipated visit of Bishops to the beautiful Markotter complex, the home of Paul Roos rugby. Good money would normally be on the hosts to walk this one but the truth is that Paul Roos has struggled so far this season and injury concerns are not helping their cause either. Bishops have been competitive to date but the results in big games against highflyers St Andrews of Grahamstown and Pretoria Boys High have just-just not gone their way. An interesting contest awaits.

SACS seemed to get their rugby back on track last season but 2013 might just turn out to be another one of those long years for South Africa’s oldest school.  The major blemish so far has been a 0-15 defeat at the hands of Bellville. That was an early season game though and this weekend following some Easter Festival rugby and improvements that generally come with game time, SACS are presented with a reasonable chance to bounce back in their home game against Boland Landbou. Boland Landbou had mixed fortunes in KZN at the recent Kearsney Festival. For 30-minutes during one second half there they went toe-to-toe with the mighty Grey College and almost won that half. If they could convert that outstanding passage of play into 70-minutes worth of form, they’ll cause a lot of opponents to panic this season.

Drostdy is officially a Boland team but they have significant ties to the Western Province with games against Wynberg, Bishops, Boland Landbou, Gimmies and HJS on their 2013 schedule. It’s been a pleasing start to the year for the Donkeys who also have a very distinct Top 20 feel about them . A narrow defeat to the highly rated Transvalia of Vanderbijlpark at the NWU-Pukke is their only shortcoming in 2013. They travel to Stellenberg and should come out of that game with a fairly comfortable victory.

Tygerberg is not considered a WPPL team. They do however have matches against Gimmies, Bishops, SACS, Rondebosch, Wynberg and Drostdy, making them as close to the League as one can get. Saturday will seem them square up against Primrose.