E/Cape

Eastern Province has named 3 under-18 teams to face Eastern Province Country Districts in the annual Meyer Sauerman to be held in Graaff Reinet on Saturday, 17 May 2014.…

The Queen’s College 1st XV Rugby team dished up one of the surprises of the season with a stunning come from behind victory on the Recreation ground on Saturday afternoon. The underdog status that the “Men in White” had going into the match was part of their motivation to secure the shock 29-25 victory over their much fancied opponents from Port Elizabeth. While most supporters gave Queen’s very little chance going into this encounter, the QC team itself always had the belief that they could stand up to this highly rated Grey, even after the QC teams early season battles.…

Meyer Sauerman is the Eastern Province and Eastern Province Country Districts tournament. The name originates from the surnames of the people most involved in the inception of this idea (format) of final trials. It has been going for many years, although the format has changed slightly over the years.…

Queen’s College will host Selborne as part of their Reunion weekend celebrations. Queen’s haven’t lost on their famous ground, “The Rec” since Dale won there in 2011. That’s a long and proud winning streak that the Queenians would love to extend via claiming the scalp of the East London powerhouse.…

Many passionate school rugby followers of the Eastern Cape region were able to attend the Graeme Rugby Day and the Grey High Festival. I asked a handful of these supporters of the wonderful game to come up with their selections for a combined Eastern Province / Border team. Here is the net result of their combined efforts:…

Grey High School’s recent 71-8 and 10-7 wins against Nico Malan and Michaelhouse respectively have come at a huge price in the end. …

Still a work in progress but here are what some of the 1st XVs will look like for the Graeme Rugby Day…

St Andrew’s College in Grahamstown will be involved in the first really big clash of the Eastern Cape school rugby season when they take on Daniel Pienaar from Uitenhage on Saturday, 15 March. …

Here is the first look at what the Border big guns Queen’s College of Queenstown and Selborne from East London have to offer this season. Both schools will be in action at this Saturday’s Border Schools Rugby Day …

A short while back I blogged about how jacked up Kingswood were with their preseason rugby preparations. In spite of every one of the rugby players in their 1st XV squad being a dual sportsman, the little Grahamstown co-ed private school had managed to organise their 1st XV squad well ahead of other bigger high schools from the Eastern Cape. Now much closer to the start of the rugby season well laid plans are slightly derailed.…

The Dale College first team to face De Vos Malan in the derby of King on 08 March 2014…

The 2014 Border schools rugby season officially gets underway with the annual Border Rugby Day which takes place at Border Stadium in East London on Saturday, 15 March 2014. This is super early season opportunity for supporters to see what  talent that the best rugby schools in the region are packing this year.…

Die Brandwag’s 2013 team contained some very good players that helped them achieve a set of good results. Included in that team was Malcolm Jaer who went on to gain SA Schools selection, joining the likes of Brandwag old boys Freddie Ferreira (1980), Sean Plaatjies (1996) and Riaan Arendse (2007) in the process. …

Former NMMU Supremo and SA Universities Assistant Coach Brent Janse van Rensburg is the new Director of Rugby at Grey High School.…

It would have been acceptable for Kingswood, a small private co-ed from Grahamstown to be amongst the last of the Eastern Cape schools to get their 1^st XV rugby for 2014 up and running. Although they don’t the student numbers of most rival schools, Kingswood remains competitive in sports across the board during the year thanks to the commitment of boys, …

Two Muir College students returned to their school in Uitenhage, Eastern Province last week after a short stay at Noord-Kaap in Kimberley did not live up to their expectations.…

Report from Old Dalian Denver Donian a reporter from the Bugle

DALE COLLEGE was privileged to be at the centre of a program set to improve the face of school rugby in the area when they hosted the Sport Focus Capacity Building Programme – a school rugby coaching workshop facilitated by the South African Rugby Union (SARU) and the Border Rugby Union (BRU).…

Message from the Grey High (PE) Rector regarding the 1st XV coaching set up:…

A squad of 25 prospective Grey 1st XV players undertook a 13 day and a five match of the United Kingdom in late November and early December. Much is expected of this group of U17 and U16 players who will make up the Grey 1st XV next season, and they didn’t disappoint – winning all 5 of their matches on tour.…

From Grey High School in Port Elizabeth
Grey High will undertake a 13 day tour of England and Wales as part of their preparation for next season. The 25 man squad will depart on the 23^rd of November to play 5 matches against Abingdon in Oxford, Plymouth College, Millfield, Monmouth in Wales, before playing London Irish U17 on the the 1^st of December. …

On Tuesday, 22 October Dale College’s Craven Week centre Somila Jho completed his transfer from the Dale College, the Border powerhouse school in King William’s Town to Kingswood College in Grahamstown. The move was made possible by the Eastern Province Kings.…

Nico Malan’s centre and captain for a part of the season Selwyn Davids currently stands on 408 points for the season. That is quite something. …

An article by Playa ahead of this weekends big Dale vs Queens derby – one of the oldest and best in South Africa.

Unbeknown to most, Dale College admitted its first black learner way back in 1901. It would be another 90 years before the next group of what were then known as ‘Guinea Pigs’ would be admitted as Dalians.

Dale played their first all-school game in 1891 against their biggest foe to date, Queens College. Out of the school’s 4 main rivals (others being Selborne College, St Andrews College and Grey High School), and until recently Queens have been the only rival that has won more games than Dale on head to head (Grey PE went ahead of Dale in 2005). Dale were last ahead of Queens in 1975.…

The two Eastern Cape big cities rivals Grey High of PE and Selborne of East London went head to head on Friday, 09 August it what is always a highlight game on the school rugby calendar. The match was played in difficult weather conditions at Grey’s home ground in Port Elizabeth this year and by halftime the result still hung in the balance. …

Long after people forget the match details or the final score of 51-21 from the televised Grey College versus Grey High game, they will still remember the horrific leg injury that standout Grey High forward Martin Groenewald sustained. For many including Martin’s teammates, the extent of the injury was almost too much to bear and they had to look away. It’s not something you wish to see happen to anyone, yet alone a player who has genuine potential to go far in rugby.…

A few months back, I praised Grey High for their clever application of the SARU age-banding rule for a home game against Paul Roos. The match was an under-18 match and therefore Grey were permitted to play their talented under-16 flyhalf Curwin Bosch. Well now it turns out that Grey didn’t do their homework ahead of Cape Schools Week and brought the same player on off the bench in an under-19 game against Paarl Gim on Saturday, which in terms of the SARU rules is not allowed.…