Hailed as one of the country’s favourite schoolboy rugby festivals, the 12th annual Standard Bank Kearsney Easter Rugby Festival launched on February 19.
The festival promises rugby enthusiasts exciting running rugby from some of the country’s top rugby-playing schools over the Easter weekend while offering participating players opportunities to secure a possible future in provincial and national rugby.
Twelve South African school teams renowned for their rugby pedigree will participate between April 18 and 22 at Kearsney College in Botha’s Hill, between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
This year Hoërskool Transvalia from Gauteng will participate for the first time. They will join Pretoria Boys High School, Hoërskool Dr EG Jansen, HTS Middelburg and Welkom Gimnasium from Gauteng.
Selborne College (East London) and Hoërskool Framesby (Port Elizabeth) will represent Eastern Cape. HTS Drostdy from Worcester in the Western Cape and Hoërskool Noord-Kaap (Northern Cape ) as well as Glenwood High School, Durban High School and hosts Kearsney College from KwaZulu-Natal complete the line-up.
Etienne Fynn, managing director of the Sharks Academy, said the festival provides players with an ideal platform on which to demonstrate their abilities. It also provides spectators with the opportunity to watch players who could become household names in a couple of seasons, he added.
Fynn confirmed the Sharks Academy would again offer bursaries to three selected players after the festival’s final game. These bursaries include a contract with the academy, accommodation and a tuition bursary with one of its education partners.
Since the first Kearsney Easter Rugby Festival in 2008, many festival players have been selected for Varsity Cup and u-21 sides as well as for provincial, Super Rugby and Currie Cup teams, Springboks and SA Sevens.
Some players have been selected by overseas clubs and provincial sides such as Western Force (Australia), Ealing and Sale Sharks (England), Munster (Ireland), La Rochelle and Montpellier (both France) as well as for the Barbarians, Scotland, British and Irish Lions, Germany and Western Australia Sevens.
Speaking at the launch, Kearsney headmaster Elwyn van den Aardweg said the school was preparing to welcome capacity crowds to the family-focused event.
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