Preview: SACS vs Wynberg
The oldest school in South Africa, the South African College High School (SACS), hosts old adversaries Wynberg Boy’s High School in a FNB Classic Clash on Saturday. Wynberg will travel the few kilometres over the hill full of confidence having beaten SACS twice in 2012.
Wynberg have a young team, mostly Grade 11s, and a new coaching partnership in Justin van Winkel and Alan Gerber. They coached the majority of this team last year as Under-16s in 2012 but have added some serious firepower in Wynberg’s two Craven Week players, Siya Alam at flyhalf and Jarryd Sage at inside centre.
Wynberg have a had a good season thus far, racking up three big wins at the St. Stithians Easter Festival before returning home to draw with Rondebosch and then score a massive come from behind win against Grey High. They threw away a golden opportunity to beat Boland Landbou on the farm and have taken big defeats from the two Paarl schools. Like SACS they will draw many positives from their 42-28 win over Bishops two weeks ago.
Wynberg will be looking to their young but abrasive pack to gain set-piece ascendency to allow Alam and Sage to weave their magic.
SACS have also had a good season thus far with the highlights being wins over Boland Landbou and Bishops. In between they have also suffered at the hands of their other two Boland opponents, Boishaai and Paul Roos, as well as being soundly beaten by Rondebosch.
Resultswise there is not much in it and as ever with these local Southern Suburbs derbies is usually comes down to who is hungrier on the day.
SACS have injuries to key forwards Struan Murray (hooker) and Dean Basson (lock) so a lot will rest on the only two remaining senior players in the pack, Joel MacQuene and Yandisa Maqenukana. In the backs Shane Fourie’s boot will again be important as will the match-up between the two skippers, Jarryd Sage and Keagan Wheeler, who both play inside-centre.
There is a lot to play for but unfortunately the weather is again predicted to be foul on Saturday so the game may just come down to which team makes fewer mistakes and controls their discipline better.
Teams:
SACS: 15 Seb Roodt, 14 Damian Rawstorne, 13 Richard Rodgers, 12 Keagan Wheeler (captain), 11 Matthew Wadling, 10 Shane Fourie, 9 Michael Henning, 8 Devon Barnard, 7 Chad Reich, 6 Yandisa Maqenukana (vice-captain), 5 Justin Joubert, 4 Robert Mylrea, 3 Wesley Futter, 2 Travis Raa ,1 Joel MacQuene
Wynberg: 15 Karl Martin, 14 Ibie Adams, 13 Jihaad Smith, 12 Jarryd Sage (captain), 11 Stef Botha, 10 Siya Alam, 9 Ryan Southern, 8 Keagan Timm, 7 Mark Timlin, 6 Daniel Jones, 5 Nathanael Boulle, 4 Brandon Wood, 3 Alex Goldstein, 2 Bevan Barnard, 1 Sam Henriques
Date 8 June 2013
Kick-off: 14.00
Venue: Memorial A-Field (SACS)
Weather: 10/14°C Wind: 19km/h SW 70% Chance of Rain
Referee: WP Referees' Society
