Wellington in the Boland is the venue for this year’s provincial under-18 Academy Week running from 02-05 July. The match days are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, so it’s quite congested and will be physically demanding on the players.
An SA Academy team made up of players that performed well over the three match days will be selected at the end of the festival. There is however an extra incentive this year. Due to changes in selection criteria, Academy players now also qualify for SA Schools selection. Although it’s assumed that players picked for the Academy Week teams are their respective Union’s second best available choices, in years gone by the SA Academy XV has beat the SA Schools team on a few occasions. This suggests that many of the youngsters at this tournament are every bit as good as the Craven Week players.
As usual KwaZulu-Natal has two representative sides participating. The teams are however split along different lines this year. There is the now a Country Districts team made up exclusively of players from schools outside the Durban-Maritzburg belt (and Balgowan). The KZN team is picked from schools within this region.
Day 1 fixtures:
Pumas CD vs Griffons
Eastern Province CD vs Leopards
Limpopo Blue Bulls vs Border
Blue Bulls vs Eastern Province
SWD Eagles vs KwaZulu-Natal
Western Province vs Golden Lions
Boland vs Free State Cheetahs
Border CD vs Blue Valke
Silver Valke vs SA LSEN Schools
Pumas vs Griffons CD
Griquas vs Namibia
Griquas CD vs Boland XV
KwaZulu-Natal CD vs Leopards CD
KZN team:
1. M.Downer (Westville) 2. S. Pina (Glenwood) 3. V. Bulala (St Charles) 4. C. Eibig (Westville) 5. S. Negri (Hilton) 6. T. Ngcongo (Westville) – captain 7. R. Kay (Glenwood) 8.
Whoops, typo, meant ‘hooped’ but ‘hopped’ is more appropriate for me
@BoishaaiPa, liking the Paarl Boys blue hopped logo!
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There is only one Outeniqua player in the SWD Academy team..the other 14 are all in the Craven Week team. There are 7 Oakdale players and the rest of the players are all from different smaller schools.
WP also played without a 3 of their regular starters in Riversdale..notorious for its one-eyed reffing!..specially against any SWD team!…It was only a warm-up match and WP did not even play in WP jerseys. So we hope they will be more fire-up come Cravenweek.
just shows , always teh team and not the individuals, combinations are what work
@Grasshopper: That was quite a margin in the end after we held them at the start.
@Greenwood: The SWD Craven Week team beat the highly fancied WP u18 team last week as well, so they are definitely up for this year’s challenge.
KWA-ZULU NATAL (U18) 19 vs SWD EAGLES (U18) 34 Full-time
If this SWD was virtually the Outeniqua team then they probably were expected to win considering they beat Glenwood 32-12 earlier in the year. Outeniqua are top 10 side and have combinations and understanding of the plays sorted already, hence they don’t need to gel like the KZN side needed too..
Latest: KWA-ZULU NATAL (U18) 19 vs SWD EAGLES (U18) 29 (@14.17)
Looking at the score SWD Eagles vs Kzn – interesting this as I read that 14 of the SWD team are from Oteniqua High who klapped Glenwood at Wildeklaver – SWD seem to be very competitive against our Kzn U18/s !!
@Grasshopper: Thanks Hopper.
Latest score: KWA-ZULU NATAL (U18) 19 vs SWD EAGLES (U18) 15 (@13.54)
Latest score: KWA-ZULU NATAL (U18) 14 vs SWD EAGLES (U18) 15 Half-time (@13.46)
Latest score; KWA-ZULU NATAL (U18) 14 vs SWD EAGLES (U18) 10 (@13.35)
any results , please send them to us