Just like against Paul Roos, the Affies pack put in another huge effort against Paarl Gim on Saturday. Their dominance at scrumtime was the most evident part of the package they bring on game day. Their lineout is on-point and their loose play top notch. Difficult customers indeed. They are top of their game. The next question is how do their incredibly powerful tight-five stack up against standout schoolboy teams of the past?
However the pressure they are able to apply up front is not translating to scoreboard success. A close defeat to Paul Roos (25-30) and now an even closer one against Paarl Gim (19-20). The Affies 2024 season is beginning to look a little like 2017 in terms of tight defeats in huge games.
25/03/2017 Affies 33-35 Paarl Gim
17/04/2017 Affies 10-14 HJS Paarl BH
29/04/2017 Affies 14-21 Paul Roos
06/05/2017 Affies 32-35 Grey College
The aim of this post was to pay homage to the Affies engineroom as the best in SA at the moment and then ask the question: who are your best six schoolboy rugby combinations so far in 2024? Not individual picks but combos: frontrow, secondrow, backrow, halves, centres, back-three.
They are brilliant, but you ain’t seen nothing yet…
Loosies, the Grey loose Trio was exceptional v Outeniqua…but the Jeppe loosies defensively against Grey were mammoths…hairy, grizzly, unyielding bullriders…Gim’s looseforwards very impressive also, but the success of their playing method is the props and locks also attacking like loosies…
Centres….I must give it to Grey College, their 12 and 13 are superb. As a combination they are phenomenal…both very powerful, fast…good hands, relentless. 13 had a blinder v Outeniqua…mind you, the whole team did.
@OudAffie (Comment #3)
Respect to Coach Koch…the Affies scrum is very scary…Vrey at Loosehead is Yster, I thought Gim’s tighthead was going to be torn in half, to his credit he endured the mangling…bloody ‘eck, his neck…these guys are tough. But Vrey especially and the locks behind him powerful…Even at u/16 everyone was trying to survive scrumming him.
@OudAffie (Comment #3)
Kan nie meer saamstem nie. Jaco is ‘n great ou en het tyd vir almal, ongeag jou affiliasie. Affies is baie bevoorreg om hom te he.
@Rainier (Comment #8)
Ek weet nie of hy beseer is nie ,Ja nee Felix se groot toets sal die naweek wees ,maar wat ek gesien het kry hy die bal weg selfs in n tackle situasie…
@Smallies (Comment #7)
Ek sal graag die 10 onder druk wil sien speel, soos dit verseker die naweek gaan gebeur.
Is Pretorius Ekeji beseer?
Not to sound like a one eyed supporter but the Grey 9 and 10 was excellent this weekend as well as 11,14,15 ….however I’ll reserve my judgement until after this weekend ,Gim will be a very stern test.
At my age the memory is not great but did the Garsies pack not have the upper hand in the scrums against AHS?
@Dixon’s (Comment #4)
Mnr P Joynt was 1st team coach between 2010 and 2014. In those 5 years they won 83% persent of their games and in 4 of the 5 years ended in the top 4 in SA. 2013 being one of the best teams the school has ever had. He coached Pierre Schoeman, Ivan Van Zyl and RG Snyman. He is not coaching anymore, he is in a sense the Captain of the the Affies Super Tanker.
@OudAffie (Comment #3)
Is the headmaster still involved with coaching at all, i met him a few years ago when i was part of a touring primary schools cricket side and we stayed at Huis Frank le Roux and he was house father at the time. A good man, spent a long time chatting with us about rugby and was a great host. i remeber thst he was 1st XV coach for a while before he became Head
AFFIES COACH JACO KOCH
Westvilles back three are very good too. They were the x factor vs Jeppe this weekend.
This could be very interesting! There could be loads of combinations out there. I feel that the College front row is very overrated and that is because of Rambo. He has not brought the x factor he had last year in my opinion. Two games I watched live they did not dominate the scrums like they should be. The Glenwood game was the most disappointing. Uzu Xaba the tight head for Glenwood stood his ground really well.