Bishops scraps OD matches
The full name of Bishops, the school in Rondebosch, is the Diocesan College. Its Old Boys are called Old Diocesans or ODs for short. Each year the ODs play matches against school sides, but not this year. Those matches have been scrapped.
Bishops started playing rugby-like games in 1861, the first place in South Africa to do so. It first played the ODs in 1868, which makes it one of the oldest games in South Africa. In recent years the OD's would put out five teams to play the first five of the school's teams. They were always cheerful matches to be followed by cheerful social occasions.
There is no record of serious injuries in these matches down the years for, traditionally, they are matches of skill and running, Bishops playing Bishops rugby against Bishops, with lots of tries and much good humour.
Bishops subscribes to Boksmart, SARFU's wholly laudable initiative to make rugby safer. Boksmart says schoolboys should not play out of their age-groups and that means no Old Boys vs Schools matches.
Bishops are not the only ones to comply. Rondebosch have also just scrapped theirs. Bob von Witt, the Bishops lawyer, gave his opinion that were such games to go ahead and a schoolboy was injured the school could be held liable
It may just be that the way schools play is more dangerous than playing against genteel Old Boys. There is in South Africa an idiotic obsession with size and a mindless gameplan of charging into opponents, collision rugby rather than the skilful, beat-your-man, pass-before-contact rugby. Thump-and-bang is the name of the game.
ODs will be playing rugby, just not against schoolboys. The OD Union has organised a different rugby programme.
Some years ago Bishops scrapped house matches which had been so keenly contested from 1918 in two divisions - junior (Under-15) and senior (over 15). This was done as a result of parental protest against the possibility of injury for which the school would be held liable.
Now the ODs are resurrecting that old custom with ODs playing a seven-a-side knock-out competition and having an Old Crocks match.