There is a BIG problem in EPCD. Two of their main schools Kingswood and St Andrew’s, both privates based in Grahamstown have placed their own annual inter-schools meeting above the region’s Craven Week preparations on the rugby priority list.
K-Day as the tremendously popular day on the Grahamstown annual calendar has come to be known is at St Andrew’s on Saturday 13 June. The crowd attendance for the 1st XV match is in excess of 10 000, making it one of the biggest schoolboy rugby derbies in South Africa. For most 1st XV players from both schools, the match marks the pinnacle of their school rugby careers.
With Tuesday, 16 June being a public holiday, EPCD along with several others provinces around the country have targeted that long weekend for Craven Week and other national youth week warm-up matches.
Now EPCD has to either excuse the private schools players for that weekend or not select them for youth week duty at all. It’s a lose-lose situation. As an already weak region, EPCD desperately needs all the quality it can lay its hands on. At the same time, not having players available for key warm-up matches to a large extent defeats the purpose of playing them at all.
Some level-headed problem solving is now required.
@Wyvern: Agree 100%. In the past I have seen parents fly back players in helicopters just to make the second half of a K-Day fixture!
EPCD without players from these two schools will be very weak, even more so with Marlow maybe having a slightly weaker team this year.
@Wyvern: This speaks to an old belief of mine,which is simply…schoolboy fixtures should ALWAYS take precedence over any provincial duty.As onerous a task as it may be, administrators need to have a proper look at schoolboy fixtures when organising their provincial calendars, and not the other way around. There is no way that K-Day will move – EPCD will either have to lose out on the players or reschedule their warm up. The most level headed solution in m books would be the latter.
I suspect there’s going to be a good few players from the two schools in the EPCD team. K-Day isn’t going to move, so i guess EP should give the Saturday a miss and have a warmup fixture on the Monday/Tuesday…..