Big Rugby Day in Keimoes

SCHOOL FESTIVAL: The Orange River, South Africa’s biggest river, flows from Lesotho in the East out into the Atlantic Ocean.

On its journey of over 2 000 km, the Orange generously brings its waters through desert regions and creates a fertile green strip along the way. One of its beneficiaries is the town of Keimoes in the Northern Cape.

Now in its fifth year, the South African Rugby Union’s Get into Rugby (GIR) programme will be active in this part of the Northern Cape. It is a developmental programme with a strong transformational component, reminiscent of the clinics which Doc Craven, Ian Kirkpatrick and Dougie Dyers started in the 1970s to break down racial barriers in South African rugby.

In 2018, there were 19 tournaments throughout South Africa with over 208 000 participants. GIR aims to provide each individual child with the opportunity to receive consistent and relevant rugby training during their primary school education from Grade 1 through to Grade 7.

GIR, which is largely SARU funded, has divided the Northern Cape into two regions – Kimberley and then this one, Upington and Orange District. Keimoes falls into the latter region.

This 15-school tournament comes at the end of the second term with more, smaller tournaments scheduled for the third term, including a girls-only tournament.

The schools taking part in this tournament are Simbruner, Soverby, Louisvale, Pabalello, Keimoes, Rosendal, Frank Big,gs, Kalksloot, Hoer Sekondere Skool Keimoes, Keidebees, Currieskamp, Franciscus, Blaauwskop, Oranje Oewer and Vooruitsig.

Griquas Rugby Union, SARU and Global Performance Management will run the tournament.

And Springboks Lood de Jager and Jesse Kriel will be there.