Graeme Rugby Day 2016
With the Easter weekend at the end of March next year, this yearly extravaganza of top-class schools rugby will be played on Saturday, 12 March 2016, and it will again provide the competing schools with the perfect opportunity to showcase their talents and to measure themselves against their Eastern Cape rivals.
For next year's tournament, the organisers have focused solely on Eastern Cape schools and do not have a team from outside the region's borders. That, however, will in no way detract from quality of play on offer and there are some mouth-watering clashes on the cards.
The feature match which finishes off the programme will a particularly interesting clash between Kingswood and Queen's. This will be a repeat of their match-up in the 2014 Graeme Rugby Day, which Queen's won 15-10.
You would generally regard the Queenians as favourites, but Kingswood had an outstanding year in 2015, emerging as the kings of Grahamstown by defeating both St Andrew's and Graeme. They have the potential to produce another big year and this early test should be a fascinating showdown, bearing in mind that the teams had a humdinger in their inter-schools clash this year, which Queen's won 43-35 in Queenstown.
Graeme have generously conceded the feature game to the Kingswood-Queen's clash, but they and Marlow will have plenty to offer in the main curtain-raiser. This is a rare clash between the two schools and it will certainly be a tough test for the hosts against relatively small school who often punch above their weight.
Those matches will be preceded by two games which will be well worth watching. Selborne were the top team in the Eastern Cape in 2015 and they will always be an outfit who are tough to beat.
In contrast Framesby battled this year, but they have a long and proud rugby tradition and you can bank on them coming back hard to prove a point in 2016. A win over Selborne would be the perfect tonic to kick off their season. In the clash two years ago at the Graeme Rugby Day, Selborne won 33-29 and that's an indication of what lies ahead in March.
The other match will be a repeat of an encounter this year between St Andrew's and Nico Malan, of Humansdorp, which the Grahamstown school won 33-20. With their focus on running rugby, the Andreans could again be tough to stop.
East London side Stirling have one of the most daunting tasks of the day when they play top EP side from 2015 Grey High, while Pearson face an equally challenging match when they open proceedings against Dale College.
Fixtures
08.00: Dale vs Pearson
09.10: Union High vs Hudson Park
10.20: Grey High vs Stirling
11.30: Muir vs Cambridge
12.40: Selborne vs Framesby
13.50: St Andrew’s vs Nico Malan
15.00: Graeme vs Marlow
16.10: Kingswood vs Queen’s
By Neale Emslie
