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Gauteng wins the Grogper Cup 2013

29 July, 2013 beet 164

The Gauteng English-medium schools have won the inaugural Grogper Cup. They bounced back to beat their KwaZulu-Natal opponents 7-6 in a closely contested competition.…

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Affies beats Glenwood 53-23

28 July, 2013 beet 346

Affies, the current number one ranked rugby school in South Africa scored eight tries as part of a 53-23 victory against Glenwood on Dixon’s field in Durban.…

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Grey vs Grey

27 July, 2013 beet 19

The two schools named after the former Governor of the Cape, Sir George Grey mean in Bloemfontein today. The match will be broadcast live on Super Sport 1 at 13h00. (Repeat on SS8 at 21h30)…

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Glenwood aim to reduce the gap between themselves & Affies

25 July, 2013 beet 93

Glenwood will be out to cause an upset when they take on Affies, the current number one ranked school in South Africa. Affies has won twelve games this season so far and Glenwood has ten wins to their name but significantly the Pretoria team  will arrive in Durban undefeated while Glenwood has lost seven games this season.  …

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Grogper Cup decider: will it be Gauteng or KZN?

23 July, 2013 beet 76

You just gotta love schoolboy rugby! There are so many things to enjoy about the game being played on the field and when you can add unpredictability of the outcome to the mix, it just makes it that much more entertaining. At the start of this season and any season for that matter, in my mind at least, this Grogper Cup, a made-up tournament between several KZN and Gauteng English-medium schools should have been a foregone conclusion.…

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Lions juniors make the Sharks eat humble pie

21 July, 2013 beet 27

The Golden Lions Rugby Union underlined their importance to the continued well-being of the South African rugby with two good road wins against the Sharks on Friday. In the under-19 game, a 67th minute try by EG Jansen Old Boy Kyle van Dalen sealed the deal as the Lions triumphed 21-13, denying the Sharks a bonus point in the process. In the under-21 game the visitors from Jozi had matters under control from the first half, building up a 17-0 lead at one stage and then holding out to win it 24-17 against a fairly competent Sharks team.

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KZN star backline player signed by the Cheetahs

17 July, 2013 beet 27

Free State may have lost out to Western Province in their endeavours to retain the services of outstanding Grey College and SA Schools fullback EW Viljoen but they compensated for the lost in the best way possible by signing Glenwood and KZN Schools fullback Corné Vermaak. …

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Free State rugby on the rise

15 July, 2013 beet 28

This season the Cheetahs senior team has rewritten the history books by qualifying for the Super Rugby play-offs for the first time since they became an independent franchise back in 2006. In addition to this they finished the regular season ahead of two major rivals namely the Sharks and the Stormers (WP in disguise). Now their junior Currie Cup teams are off to a good start. …

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Craven Week 2013: Golden Lions team & Academy Week team

6 June, 2013 beet 15

The Golden Lions under-18 teams have the usual Monnas flavour about them. 15 out of 44 come from the Krugersdorp school, with 9 of those picks being Craven Week players. Jeppe picked up a decent reward for their above average season to date with 8 players. Florida have had two relatively weak 1st XV’s in a row now but still managed to be well represented again this year with 8 players as well.…

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Craven Week 2013: Free State team almost finalised

6 June, 2013 beet 16

Free State are in the process of finalising their Craven Week team. They named a fairly predictable blend of 13 Grey College  and 9 HTS Louis Botha players for a trial match against the Griffons.  The squad is very much along the lines of the quota system in place for Craven Week which stipulates that each team must have a minimum of 9 Previously Disadvantaged Individuals (PDI) in their squad of 22 with no fewer than 5 required to be in the starting line-up and on the field at all times. …

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Golden Lions join Craven Week selection circus

2 June, 2013 beet 48

During their TV coverage of the Premier Interschools match between Monument and Glenwood today, the commentators made several references to 8 Monnas players being chosen for Craven Week, while a further 5 were included the Academy Week team. Furthermore the commentary team seem to know who the selected players were by name. It all seemed plausible right up until the end of the production when Defender (read player) of the Match, Monnas’ no.8 Wiehan Jacobs was asked a question related to his selection for Craven Week. Jacobs quickly replied along the lines that he was still hoping to be selected and that the Golden Lions Craven Week team had not been announce yet.…

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Glenwood’s Corné the Ver-marquee player

1 June, 2013 beet 10

Glenwood takes on the Monument Witbulle in a Premier Interschools game this afternoon. The match will be shown on a delayed broadcast at 21:30 on Supersport 1 tonight. One of the players well worth keeping an eye on is Glenwood fullback Corné Vermaak. Vermaak is in outstanding form at the moment. With each passing game he looks to have peaked but then seems to set the bar a little higher with his next outing. …

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Craven Week 2013: Bulls team named along with Academy & Noordvaal

24 May, 2013 beet 112

The Bulls have named there extremely powerful team for Craven Week. The competition for starting places was fierce. In the end Francois Steyn held off Vean Roodt, Hyron Andrews got the nod ahead of Abongile Nonkwantana and Justin Phillips edged out Ivan van Zyl to be in the starting XV.…

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Battleground Pretoria: Affies vs Klofies

21 May, 2013 beet 77

The fact that the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool Pretoria (Affies) versus Hoërskool Waterkloof (Klofies) match did not take place for a few years did not dim anyone’s enthusiasm. On the contrary it just seemed to increase everyone’s desire to see this game return so that the schools regarded as the top two in Pretoria had a showdown.

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Day zero at Grey College

20 May, 2013 beet 73

On 19 August 2006, Paul Roos recorded a famous 16-11 win against Grey College in Bloemfontein. For a total of 2458 days thereafter the Grey College home ground became an impenetrable fortress as they built up what must surely be one of the longest unbeaten home streaks in modern era school rugby history.

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Waterkloof beats Garsies in an epic battle! 36-34

20 May, 2013 beet 39

Klofies first rugby team beat Garsies on Saturday, this after Waterkloof experienced three losses in a row. The match could have gone either way. Waterkloof beat Garsies 36 – 34 in a very tight match. The match was played in front of a crowd of about 5000 spectators. Garsfontein were optimistic. Their first team has never beaten Waterkloof.

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The state of Free State schools rugby

19 May, 2013 beet 33

I leveled some perhaps unfair criticism over the state of Free State schools rugby. It’s certainly not meant to be an attack on the efforts made by schools to train players and produce good teams. It’s more concern over the growing divide between the top school Grey College and the rest in terms of competitiveness. The Free State (including the Griffons) definitely produces enough talented players to ensure that several of its schools would be highly competitive from a national point of view but preventing this is the concentration of  talent at just one school only. It’s now gotten to the point that Grey College’s 2nd XV, the Cherries are the second best team in the entire province. This is where the concern lies.