Saturday was a good day for the u16A squad. After 9 weeks, 16 practices and 1700 minutes of pre-season training the team finally got to play the first game of the season against Milnerton.
The effort this squad has put in over the summer has been immense, all the fitness and gym sessions have been done with 100% effort by all the boys as they knew that the harder they worked, the better the chance of doing well this year.
The boys were extremely confident and excited before the match, a vastly different mindset compared to the same time last year! The growth of confidence and belief in this team is astounding, they have taken last year’s positive results and turned it into self belief, the like this team has never had in high school.
The team started the match very well setting up in Milnertons 22m, where we won a penalty which Zubair Ajam duly slotted over to make it 3 – 0.
Our attack was not too bad in the first half with quick ball on most occasions providing the go forward ball from which Shane Fourie scored the team’s first try of the year. Zubair converted to make it 10 – 0. More infringements later by Milnerton enabled Zubair to slot 2 more penalties taking us to 16 – 0 at half time.
The second half was not as good as the first, with more errors and penalties given away unnecessarily. This forced us to defend for far longer than we would have liked to. Milnerton took a shot at goal after an infringement from inside their own half and was duly converted to make it 16 – 3.
We hit back from the kick off, swinging it wide to Jason who scored in the corner after an interesting offload by Gustuv. Zubair converted taking us to 23 – 3.
The reserve bench began to come on from this point on which changed the match somewhat as the new players found their feet playing in the A team for the first time.
A penalty in our own half was taken quickly and a few passes later and a good build up led to Devon Barnards try under the posts, rounding off a man of the match performance. The conversion was duly taken by Zubair to take the score to 30 – 3.
Milnerton had the last say scoring in the corner to finish the game off at 30 – 8. All told a good first outing for the team.
There is much to work on if this team is to challenge the top teams in the Cape, however from what we achieved at certain times in the match there is much to look forward to! Confidence is a wonderful thing and what was evident from the game on Saturday, is that the boys are getting better every practice, knowing they have the skills to pull off some exciting tries and possibly some exciting wins as well this year.
Our next big challenge will be against St Johns and Grey P.E at the Wynberg festival, both very good rugby schools that will give this team an opportunity to prove how far they have come and how far they are going this year.
-Ross Williams