SACS within a whisker of Boishaai

The South African College High School (SACS) produced a quality performance against their highly-ranked visitors from Paarl Boishaai. SACS led 7-5 at half-time before losing 19-10. The game was played in Newlands on a beautiful winter's morning.

SACS started well and quickly imposed their pattern on Boishaai, which led to a penalty for the hosts.

The home side had the better of the opening quarter and capitalised on their superiority with a great try for fullback Tando Rudah. After building a few phases SACS went wide and their centres ran good holding lines to open up space for Rudah to cut through, side-step the fullback and score. Flyhalf Chris Smith converted to put SACS seven points clear.

Rudah went off injured soon after as did SACS inside centre Leighton van Wyk.

Boishaai soon struck back, stretching the SACS defence with some slick handling and freeing up flank Ryno van der Merwe for the score. Like Rudah, Van der Merwe was injured in the act of scoring and he also had to leave the field. The conversion was missed from out wide and SACS lead 7-5 going into half-time.

SACS stretched their lead early in the second half as Smith struck a penalty.

Boishaai are a side full of class though and flyhalf Jean-Luc du Plessis used his boot well to obtain field position for his team. Despite having two Craven Week locks the Boishaai line-out did not function as well as one might expect. The fact that they had new lifters and a new thrower may explain some of their problems. Boishaai's hooker and captain was injured for the game but they had dropped both their first choice props.

Despite a slightly wobbly line-out, Boishaai scored their second try from a short line-out just outside the SACS 22m-area. The Boishaai loose-forwards ran off Du Plessis and broke through their SACS counterparts to set up an offload and try for scrumhalf Pieter Schoonraad. The try was converted and Boishaai took the lead for the first time.

SACS kept probing though, the SACS forward producing a gutsy and committed performance against their bigger opponents. Miles Hoogwerf was a menace for Boishaai at the breakdown and with ball in hand, while SACS lock Dean Basson had a big game on defence. SACS had a chance to take the lead midway through the second half but Smith missed the penalty.

Boishaai pressured SACS for long periods of the last quarter but the SACS defence held firm for the most part. It took a piece of individual brilliance from Du Plessis, son of Carel 'The Prince of Wings', to put the game beyond SACS as he counter-attacked, stepped the chase line and set up a try for left wing Dante van der Merwe. Right wing Tiaan Mouton was on target with the conversion to put Boishaai ten points clear.

SACS had a penalty to close the gap but chose to kick for the corner but as had been the case most of the second half their line-out let them down. These types of mistakes you cannot afford to make against quality teams like Boishaai, and SACS paid the ultimate price.

It was a good game of rugby, enjoyed by a large crowd, most of whom will be back next week when SACS play host to a desperate Diocesan College (Bishops).

An administrative error with the fixtures means Boishaai have another week off before welcoming Grey College (Bloem) to Paarl in two weeks' time.

The scorers:

For SACS:
Try: Tando Rudah
Con: Chris Smith
Pen: Smith

For Paarl Boys' High:
Tries: Ryno van der Merwe, Pieter Schoonraad, Dante van der Merwe
Cons: Tiaan Mouton 2