Kingswood College, St Andrew’s College and Graeme College rugby teams were all in action over the past weekend. The Kingswood 1st team was in rampant form when they beat Pearson 44–7 in Port Elizabeth.
Kingswood College, St Andrew’s College and Graeme College rugby teams were all in action over the past weekend. The Kingswood 1st team was in rampant form when they beat Pearson 44–7 in Port Elizabeth.
Kingswood soaked up the initial physical challenge from their hosts with some hard tackling and effective work at the breakdown before settling into a well structured pattern which saw them dominating both possession and territory.
Kingswood opened the scoring with two penalties by Scott van Breda after some good sustained pressure. They then followed this up with a try by left wing, Lihleli Xoli who scored in the corner after some slick passing and good interplay between the Kingswood backs and forwards.
Xoli bagged his second try a few minutes later when a well worked lineout move created quick second phase ball which the Kingswood backs exploited to the full.
Van Breda converted bringing the halftime score to 18–0 in the visitors favour. Another well worked set piece, this time a scrum, opened the second half scoring for Kingswood when center Chris Keets scored after full back Van Breda broke the Pearson line.
Xoli picked up his third try of the match before flyhalf Steven Hansel scored from quick turnover ball. Both tries were converted by Van Breda. With about fifteen minutes to go in the match, Pearson rallied briefly and after stringing some good phases together managed to drive over for a try near the uprights which they converted.
However, Kingswood had the last say of the day when replacement wing, David Kombe rounded off an excellent line break by vice-captain John Hale for Van Breda to convert.
St Andrew’s 1st team ran out 17–3 winners in yet another tough and physical encounter against Daniel Pienaar on Saturday.
The work done by the St Andrew’s tight forwards, in particular, was once again influential in the success of the day as they were dominant at scrum and lineout time.
Despite only scoring one try in each half St Andrew’s did look threatening and created other great scoring opportunities throughout the game, but were just not able to capitalise on them. All credit to the opposition who put their bodies on the line and defended with great vigour.
They often had one or two players down after a period of play and had to make a number of forced substitutions during the game.
In a disappointing match Graeme went down heavily to Selborne in East London, losing 52-0. Graeme were still in the match at halftime having played very well and being unlucky to be 14 points adrift, having missed three penalty attempts and come close to scoring two tries.
The Graeme defense had been very committed up to this point. The second half was a different affair with Selborne using their large runners to good effect and the Graeme players not being able to plug the gaps.
Winger Juandre Nel had a very strong game for the losing team and flank Olwethu Hans and centre Aubrey Mpongoma tackled their hearts out.
