The best of South African schoolboy rugby is on view this weekend
Andy Capostagno
It was kind of the Super 12 organisers to give the South African sides an Easter off. After the dismal results of the first half of the tournament, a week away from the game is just what the doctor ordered. And while the Cats are away, the mice will play.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that Easter, on the Highveld at least, means schools festival rugby at St Stithians, St Johns and King Edward’s. The St Johns and KES events will get some high-profile treatment with live coverage on Supersport.
Coverage is on Thursday and Monday from St Johns, while KES’s centenary match against Rondebosch is the highlight on Saturday.
Saturday’s action includes a Vodacom Cup match, which is likely to see the return from injury of Andre Vos to the Lions team. And while some of the stakeholders at Ellis Park may complain, there is no doubt that the spectacular backdrop and the guaranteed crowd at St John’s will do more for the game than the vast emptiness of the Lions’ Doornfontein den.
Across the city in Randburg, the St Stithians festival enters its 19th year, with the proud boast that most of the players on view were not yet born when the festival began in 1984. In addition to the hosts, Potchefstroom Boys High and Bishops (Diocesan College, Cape Town) both played in 1984 and are back again this year.
Bishops claim to have been playing rugby in this country longer than any other school and, with rugby evangelists such as Basil Bey involved down the years, have become famous for their expansive game.
This year the squad includes Lee du Plessis, son of Morn, and Murray Kuiper, nephew of cricket’s mighty hitter, Adrian.
The fixture that may provide the highlight of the festival kicks off at 2.45pm on Saturday, when Ermelo play Landbouskool Boland. The latter school has just over 300 pupils, but regularly turns out Craven Week stars for Boland and Western Province, depending on which claims them as an affiliate.
Ermelo produced the South African Schools flyhalf of two years ago, Nel Fourie, while Landbou’s Derek Hougaardt played the same position last year.
And proof that schools rugby is coming closer to provincial rugby every year was served at Loftus Versfeld last month when Fourie made his Super 12 debut for the Bulls and, in the curtain raiser, Hougaardt played a blinder for the Blue Bulls in the Vodacom Cup.
That’s the sort of thing that will bring the agents to watch this Easter, but hopefully it will not turn these contests into the kind of dour, win-at-all-costs rugby that is disfiguring the game in this country.