Harrismith part of the Noord-Suid Toernooi

The lesson learned from the Noord-Suid Toernooi 2014 will be that irrespective of how much money organisers have at their disposals, attracting top teams to participate is in a first time festival played during the school holidays is a lot easier said than done.

In their desperation to find a fourth team to be part of the inaugural Noord-Suid Toernooi, those in charge have had to settle on relatively unknown Free State Griffons rugby school Harrismith. So it’s not certain if Harrismith will be classified as a “Noord” or a “Suid” school for the purpose of this tournament but they are included because a Cape school was not available after HTS Drostdy dropped out.

Harrismith has drawn a bit of attention to itself this year already but for the wrong reasons. A “poaching” of Border region players appeared on Rugby365.com in January ( http://www.rugby365.com/article/58161-another-player-recruitment-story).

Harrismith will do well to avoid three figure scores being put up against them if their two matches go the full time distance.

Nevertheless the Noord-Suid Toernooi 2014 at Menlopark still looks like an event well worth attending and promises to be even better in 2015, when it’s hoped that the likes of Affies, Paarl Boys High and Paul Roos will join the festival to be hosted in the Western Cape.