26 Mar 23. National powerhouses Paarl Gymnasium and Paarl Boys’ High both had to toil hard before coming out with surprising one-point results against less fancied Cape Town Northern Suburbs opponents over the weekend.
Both Stellenberg and Durbanville pitched up with never-say-die attitudes and tackled for all they were worth over the 70-minute durations of their respective matches. Importantly both underdogs took the points on offer by way of converting penalty kicks at goal, which meant that in spite of losing the try-count, they were able to keep the margins tight.
Paarl Gim 24 – 23 Stellenberg
Paarl Gim showed signs of rustiness but looked to be in control on their Jan Kriel Field. By the 29th minute the score was a handy 17-3, three tries to nil, lead to home team.
Numerous Gimmies were able to share the limelight with ball-in-hand, with scrumhalf Dawid Kotze proving to be the unexpected finisher during the match and talented flyhalf Kyle Smith weaving his magic through the spaces to accumulate many metres of line-breaking running.
The dam wall looked like it was going to burst at any time. However in the dewy conditions, that influenced handling negatively, the Jade Brigade refused to give up the cause and through a series of penalty swapped ends at a respectable 17-9 down.
A fourth Gim try followed on 47 minutes to grow the gap to its biggest at 24-9.
However in spite of the good variation in play, Gim seemed to lose their compass a bit and no longer found the advantage line as easy to breach. More worryingly their scrum came under huge fire as Stellenberg tighthead Herman Lubbe proved why he’s one of the most highly rated players in the country. With Gim down to 14-men, Lubbe’s effort in winning a tighthead was a key in the starting point for as a good a team try as one will see this season. Several Jade’s combined in good timing offloads and passes. Amongst them, top performers on the evening, “yster” Number-8 Marco Ferreira and inside centre Ruben Thompson. The finisher in the left corner was replacement Stefan Visser. It reduced the score to 24-16.
The same dogged defensive determination that frustrated Gim from finishing from good territorial positions throughout the match, contributed to an opportunist visitors try near the death as a tackle turned over the ball and hack ahead into the in-goal and downward pressure to finish the score at 24-23 to Gim.
Paarl Boys’ High 25 – 26 Durbanville
This one will go down as one of the upsets of the season. Durbanville are Western Cape minnows who play in the WP Premier B league but who have been trying to make the big leap to the big times in recent years.
The match played at Porterville as part of a festive weekend, had two interesting developments in the run up. The first had been covered previously on this website. The second a bit of useless information, in that well-known Boishaai recruiter Oom Johnny van Niekerk started asking Durbies for this match at Noord-Suid in 2022 already. The Durbies SGB however were not so keen. Their community was opposed because of unhappiness about approaches made to Durbies boys in the past. However the unfavoured decision to proceed paid huge dividends in the end.
Durbies benefited from playing in similar conditions to those that prevailed at Porterville, just a few days earlier when they went down in a tight and interesting match against and at Wynberg. Just like in that match, the galvanised positive attitude and commitment to the cause was evident for 70-minutes.
Like Gim against Stellenberg, Boishaai looked like they were about to gain an unassailable strangehold on the match at any time. Their forwards led the way with the ability to make useful gains in the tighter phases. However unlike the Gim game, Boishaai were slower out of the blocks and found themselves trailing 10-0 at one stage. Even at halftime they were down 7-10, a try apiece. It was definitely a surprise and already looked like Durbies were a winner on the day due to their sheer tenacity during the first 35-minutes of very physical rugby.
Boishaai scored first in the second half to narrow the deficit to 12-13 and then added another try on their way to winning the try-count 3-2, as they gained the lead of the first time at 19-13. Despite having a number of high profile players in their Blue Train backline, apart from top scrumhalf Juan Loots’ kicking out of hand, the other backs had almost zero influence on proceedings. The expansive game to fan out the Durbies D, just did not show up in any way that represented anything close to the threat they are expected to be this season.
Durbies got the lead back in the 59th minute. The unusual part of this try was that Durbies turned down very tempting and easy kicks at goal from a series of about four penalties in a row. Lineouts and quick-taps were the preferred options before they eventually crashed over amongst a heap of bodies and converted to lead 20-19.
Then followed the hectic last 10-minutes as the teams traded penalties and the lead changed hands four times
Durbanville 20-22 HJS Paarl BH
Durbanville 23-22 HJS Paarl BH
Durbanville 23-25 HJS Paarl BH
Durbanville 26-25 HJS Paarl BH
In the end a historic Durbanville win!
Durbies flyhalf Shaun Klein emerged as a hero after scoring 21 points including a wonderful opening try set up by good build-up play and a perfect carry and delayed pass by inside centre James Nero, who read the defensive structure well to create the gap and play-make the assist for Klein.
Shock to system results of 2023 to date
It’s just a few weeks into the season and a number of the schools expected to occupy the top spots have been involved in a close shave match:
1 HJS Paarl BH 25 – 26 Durbanville
2 Welkom Gim 31 – 26 Monument
3 Paarl Gim 24 – 23 Stellenberg
4 Outeniqua 18 – 14 Noordheuwel
5 Garsfontein 28 – 24 Jeppe
6 Paul Roos 17 – 5 Secunda
An incredible result for Durbanville! Their age group results in recent years have been more than admirable, it was only a matter of time before they pulled off a big upset like this (they came close to beating Bishops last year, losing a close one pointer).
Durbanville have definitely put down a marker here and won’t be pushovers by any means in the Cape league.
Well done to them on a massive result and best of luck for the season ahead!
And also a shout-out to Stellenberg too who consistently are proving their worth. They’ll be a handful this year again.