Bishops-Paarl Gim in thriller
Match Report
Bishops and Paarl Gim played to a thrilling 15-all draw on the Piley Rees Field at Bishops on Saturday. It was a wonderful advertisement for schoolboy rugby by teams who had been ranked equal on the FNB Top 20..
Speaking on schoolboy rugby, Joost van der Westhuizen, the Springbok great of not long ago, praised schoolboys for their freedom to "play to the situation". They have not been turned into robots. There were no robots on the Piley Rees Field on Saturday as both sides ran and ran and looked for every opportunity to be creative.
If you had watched the first half you would have thought that Paarl Gim were going to be comfortable victors over a bumbling Bishops side.
With ten minutes to go you would still have thought that Gim were going to win but, heavens, it was tense. Then suddenly Bishops burst loose again. Michael Nel's try to draw the match was in the corner. Points level. Conversion to come. Conversion missed. Sigh. A draw. sigh. But it was such a worthy draw as neither side deserved to lose.
Bishops scored three tries to two but until their third try, they trailed. Paarl Gim missed an easy penalty while Bishops missed three difficult conversions and a difficult penalty goal.
Paarl Gim started the scoring with a penalty by their outstanding scrumhalf Dewald Duvenage. This was followed by a try by burly hooker Bertus O'Callaghan who was standing off when the ball found him. He dropped his shoulder and burst over for the try. That made the score at half-time 8-0 to Gim.
Bishops came back with a brilliant try to make the score 8-5. Nel on the Bishops right wing scored the best of the match as he used skill, footwork and pace to score it in a match when defences were determined and efficient.
Paarl Gim struck back when, from yet another wonky Bishops effort at a kick-off, centre Johan Sadie got a soft try which Duvenage converted. 15-5.
Fullback Lee Bruinders scored the second Bishops try to make the score 15-10 and then Nel got his second.
Paarl Gim were unfortunate to lose their tighthead prop, Lourens Adriaanse with a gash to the head. The Gim pack did not work as well without him and in the second half they too began to play the wide game that Bishops play so well.
For Gim the outstanding players were O'Callaghan, loosehead Jean Rossouw, the captain of Paarl Gim, Western Province and South African Schools, scrumhalf Duvenhage and hard flank Vermeulen Rossouw.
For Bishops Bruinders, both wings Nel and Mathew Turner, and eighthman Nick Köster were outstanding though closely marked. Centre Adrian Kritzinger was again magnificent. A great watcher of schoolboy rugby over many, many years rated him in the same class as Jean de Villiers and Stuart Abbott at the schoolboy stage. His omission from the Western Province Craven Week side seems folly indeed.
The match was refereed by Marc van Zyl who refereed the final match of the 2006 Craven Week.
The big crowd, which included the president and the CEO of the Golden Lions, Jannie Ferreira and Andy Turner, were treated to a wonderful game of rugby. Hennie Bekker, the famous Springbok lock who runs the Western Province Academy, said afterwards: "What a great game! One of the best schools games I've seen in years. Initially I thought Gim would win as their forwards were going along nicely but in the second half Bishops got more possession and a draw was a fair reflection.
"And what a great atmosphere!"
Scorers:
For Paarl Gim:
Tries: Bertus O'Callaghan, Johan Sadie
Con: Dewald Duvenhage
Pen: Dewald Duvenhage
For Bishops:
Tries: Lee Bruinders, Michael Nel 2
