SATURDAY RUGBY WRAP

Jeppe and Paarl Boys’ High were the most impressive sides on view on the first day of the 20th Standard Bank King Edward VII School Easter Festival on Saturday. Jeppe beat Queens College 47-6, while Booishaai were 22-7 winners over the hosts.

Saturday was day one of the rugby festival this year -there were no rugby games on Thursday – because the organisers changed the format to two games only per team in response to concerns for player safety given the congestion of fixtures so early in the season.

The shortened programme, together with the quality of the lineup this year, resulted in a mammoth crowd, even for a Saturday, and despite an increase in the seating capacity, you couldn’t have fitted any more spectators in for the last two games of the day.

Among the schools included this year are Bishops, who always draw crowds with their attractive style of rugby, and the three Eastern Cape boarding schools – Queens, Dale and Selborne - who have active old boys chapters in Gauteng, which also swells the numbers.

There was always going to be a fair amount of people who would want to watch Jeppe, fresh from their win over Grey College, and the host team the Reds, are the best supported team in Joburg and their matchup against Paarl Boys’ High in the final match of the day guaranteed a sell-out.

And the hosts got the crowd excited with the way they started the game. They were on attack for the first 10 minutes straight and scored the first try to go 7-0 up. But once Paarl regained their composure, their class began to show and they scored tries regularly, helped by some uncharacteristic errors by the Reds. It was the sort of game where the scoreline could easily have gone out of control, but to their credit, KES never stopped tackling and it was kept in check.

A lot was expected of Jeppe in the curtain-raiser, and they didn’t disappoint. They ran in three tries within the first five minutes and the game was effectively over. Queens showed their customary fighting spirit, however, and the score was 19-6 to Jeppe at half time. After the break the Jeppe forwards took control, and they scored four second half tries without reply.

Earlier in the day, Northwood ran riot against Brandwag of Uitenhage, and Bishops and Pretoria Boys High scored impressive wins over dale and Selborne, respectively.