St Andrew's College, Graeme College and Kingswood College first rugby sides all found themselves on the losing side in their matches last weekend.
St Andrew's College, Graeme College and Kingswood College first rugby sides all found themselves on the losing side in their matches last weekend.
St Andrew's 1sts lost to Marlow 3-22, Kingswood lost 27-37 to Framesby and Graeme went down 22-24 to Pearson High School. St Andrew's travelled to Cradock to play their first match after half term.
Director of Rugby at St Andrew's, Allan Miles, described the rugby at Marlow as “hard and unforgiving… as always".
Marlow raced to an early 10-0 lead and St Andrew's were unable to recover from this early onslaught.
Miles said his side had, nevertheless, played some “constructive rugby" and while they'd "managed to gain some ascendancy”, they had been unable to round off their opportunities.
On the stroke of half time, St Andrew's converted a penalty and went into the break 10-3 down.
The second half saw Marlow stretch their lead to eventually win 22-3. Kingswood 1sts hosted Framesby on City Lords.
Framesby was first to strike with a penalty kick before the hosts struck back with a try by Anelisa Mteto. Framesby scored a further three tries in the first half to take a 20-10 lead at the break.
Kingswood coach Gareth Shaw said the second half “started off in disastrous fashion for the home team”, as they tried to launch a counter attack from their own half.
A subsequent turnover led to a Framesby try. A further try to Framesby saw their lead stretch to 32-10 about halfway through the second half.
According to Shaw, Kingswood sprang into action, the strong running winger, James Chungu rounding off a superb team try.
Framesby scored yet again before Anelisa Mteto dived over for his second try for Kingswood.
The Kingwood side still had more, said Shaw: “Exploiting the extra space on the field, the back line produced a moment of magic as Hertz managed to offload through the half gap, releasing Michael Braans who put through a perfectly weighted grubber for Anelisa Mteto to dive over for his third try of the game, a passage of play that showed the attacking prowess of the home team."
And that is how it ended, with the conversion missed, the score board showing 27-37 to the winning team, Framesby.
Graeme hosted Pearson High School and early on the home side controlled possession and territory through "aggressive rucking and defensive efforts”, according to coach Pierre Jacobs.
This resulted in a try by centre Abongile Hashe, who converted his own try to give Graeme a 7–0 lead. Graeme went on the attack again and centre, and captain, Gordon-Wayne Plaatjes scored.
Hashe converted and increased Graeme's lead to 14–0. A penalty by Hashe extended the lead to 17–0.
Jacobs said the side should have sealed the match at this stage, but a try by Pearson just before the half-time break, as well as another one just after the half-time break gave them a fighting chance with the score at 17–14.
Shortly thereafter Pearson scored again, as the second half saw Graeme trying to defend their lead “rather than play the attacking style of rugby we have come to expect from them”, said Jacobs.
With the score at 17–19 to Pearson, Ethan September scored for Graeme to take the lead again with 22-19.
Pearson were awarded a penalty in the final passage of play.
The resulting try in the corner allowed them to snatch victory. Graeme lost 22–24.
