IT might be school holidays, but it is busy times for the Nelson Mandela Bay rugby players.
Many of the Gqeberha and Kariega teams are involved in festivals all over the country, and there are more mouth-watering festivals around the corner. Pearson will be very happy with the way their first XV started this past Saturday in the u/19-week of Oakdale High in Riversdale.
Scrumhalf Casper Fouché played a big role in the 20-3 victory over Oos-Moot (Pretoria). He scored a try and added two conversions and two penalties for a total of 15 points. Luyolo Mba (right wing) scored the other try.
At the same festival, the Kariega boys of Die Brandwag had to fight extremely hard to get the better of Rustenburg.
Brandwag showed tremendous guts to pull through by 28-23 against Rustenburg. It was a victory they really needed after a tough start to the season, losing against strong teams like Worcester Gymnasium, Hilton College and Queen’s College.
Both teams scored four tries, but Rustenburg could not convert one of them. The accurate kicking of flyhalf Lu-Crain Muggels proved decisive for Brandwag, as he didn’t miss one conversion.
Westering was also at Oakdale and would have learned a lot from the defeat against Bredasdorp. Bredasdorp won 31-14 but the match was much more closely contested than the score might suggest.
Grey High performed well at the Union High Festival in Graaff-Reinet. The highlight was the Grey Unicorns beating Winterberg 25-5.
Earlier last week the Grey first XV and Rondebosch produced a highly entertaining match in Gqeberha, which ended in a 19-19 draw.
The festivals just keep on coming, and Framesby (Gqeberha) will be one of three teams from the Eastern Cape who will participate in the Kearsney Easter Festival in Durban.
Dale College (Qonce) and Marlow (Cradock) are the other EC schools who will play matches on April 6, 8 and 10.
One festival we do have to wait a little bit longer for is the Eastern Cape Easter tournament.
This tournament has been postponed. It was supposed to start on Friday at the stadium of the Nelson Mandela University, but will now take place from April 29 until May 1.
Grey will host their annual festival on April 27 and April 29 in Gqeberha.
All the first team matches will be played on the Kolisi Field, and will start at 09:10 on both days.
In between all these festivals, the Eastern Province fixtures will get underway on April 15.
Framesby’s fixtures in Durban: Tomorrow 11:40: v Monument. Saturday 14:20: v Durban High. Monday 14:20: v Noord-Kaap.
Results
Grey 19, Rondebosch 19; Brandwag 28, Rustenburg 23; Pearson 20, Oos-Moot 3; Grey Unicorns 25, Winterberg 5; Gill College 17, Grey Titans 0; Kearsney 26, Nico Malan (Humansdorp) 10; Secunda 24, Daniel Pienaar 7; Bredasdorp 31, Westering 14; DF Malherbe 32, Newton Tech 0; Andrew Rabie 17, Alex 8.
