A Tale of Two Competitions
As the season draws to a close, it is time for the enthralling final stages of one competition and for the opening stages of a second.
Although its initial stages, if you can call them that, are always shrouded in mystery, the Burger Schools Rugby competition nevertheless enjoys a much-respected place in the local schools game.
For those of you who are unsure what exactly it involves, the competition follows this procedure.
1. Each of the four provinces involved (Western Province, Boland, Eastern Province and South Western Districts) identifies its best Large, Medium and Small Schools. The different sizes are determined by the number of rugby teams a school fields. It is left up to the unions how they arrive at their three nominations.
2. The various Western Province and Boland representatives play each other to determine one finalist in each category. The South Western Districts and Eastern Province qualifiers play off for the other position.
3. The Finals are held at the fields of the Large School qualifier from the area which did not host the previous year’s finals.
Sounds convoluted? Simply put, last year’s finals were held at Paarl Boys’ High, the Western Province/Boland finalist, so this year’s games will be played at the fields of South Western Districts’ Outeniqua who whipped HTS Daniel Pienaar (Eastern Province) 45-22 in Uitenhage on Saturday, 18 August.
The Western Province/Boland play-off matches to be played at Paarl Gym on Wednesday, 22 August (2012) are:
Small Schools: Bellville South vs Dirkie Uys
Medium Schools: Hottentots Holland vs Augsburg Gym
Large Schools: Paarl Gym vs Hugenote
The Eastern Province/South Western Districts finalists will be determined on Saturday 25 August 2012 when the Van Riebeeck Stadium in Mossel Bay hosts the Small Schools play-off between Itembelihle (Eastern Province) and Groot Brak (South Western Districts), followed by the Medium Schools eliminator featuring Nico Malan of Humansdorp and local school Punt.
The bottom line would appear to indicate a tricky end-of-season visit to Outeniqua for a Paarl Gym side whose rating as Top School First XV in South Africa (if they beat Hugenote and survive the tricky visit to HTS Drostdy on 25 August) might well ride on the result.
* It may seem to be an odd time to kick off a schools rugby initiative, but any injection of interest into the game, particularly in the less-advantaged communities, can only be praised, especially in the current harsh economic climate.
So it is that SARU and their partners in this undertaking, Coca-Cola, will be launching the Coca-Cola Schools of Excellence programme at a rugby day to be held at the Wesbank Stadium in Malmesbury on Saturday, 25 August 2012.
The schedule for the day features the Under-14, Under-16 and First XVs of six well-known schools in the Boland region.
The programme runs as follows:
C Field
10.15: Bergrivier Under-14 vs Klein Nederburg Under-14
11.15: Schoonspruit U 14 vs Weston Under-14
12.15: New Orleans Under-14 vs Weltevrede Under-14
B Field
10.15: Schoonspruit Under-16 vs Weston Under-16
11.15: New Orleans Under-16 vs Weltevrede Under-16
12.15: Bergrivier Under-16 vs Klein Nederburg Under-16
A Field
11.15: Bergrivier 1st XV vs Klein Nederburg 1st XV
12.15: New Orleans 1st XV vs Weltevrede 1st XV
Official Launch
14.30: Schoonspruit 1st XV vs Weston 1st XV
The Western Province leg was played at Florida Park, home of Tygerberg RFC, on Saturday, 11 August. In the two games played Excelsior beat Bellville South 14-13 and Scottsdene downed Kasselsvlei 18-12 to set up a meeting in the local final on Wednesday, 5 September.
By Tony Stoops