Tuesday 21st of July saw the A team of the tour start their first match "with a bang". With the fantastic backdrop of mountains, rainbows and a beautiful sunset, the scoring opened early on with Finn Macpherson breezing past the defence to score in the corner. This was soon followed by a try from Tom Whichello after a well placed kick from skipper Matthew Lane following a turnover as a result from a great tackle from scrum half Charlie Stocks. Afterwards Finn also scored another two tries completing his hat-trick including his pick and go from a scrum at halfway going blindside. The match was topped off with a "spectacular","majestic" and "fully intentional" slip to avoid two defenders by Giovanni Del Guercio running past six players in total. The match ended with an Olaves 33-0 victory, keeping a clean sheet which was only possible through the bone crunching tackles from Colm Dudley, Darshan Varma, Nikhil Patel, a try saving tackle from Kojo Dwimoh and numerous steals from Temi Talabi. Will Carew dazzled the crowed with uncharacteristic, attacking footwork. James Tate also failed to miss a kick after the team found their kicking tee. Tommaso Candita-Simpkins made crucial runs from full back also.
The introduction of the year 9s was seamless as Lawrence Duffin stole multiple balls from line outs, Kojo Dwimoh was stunning on defence and James Harms rucked solidly throughout the match. Jacob Kunert, Joshua Joseph and Sohayl Ujoodia also made great impacts off of the bench with big hits and great running. It was great effort from the boys all around. Written by Temi Talabi, Matt Lane, Giovanni Del Guercio and Will Carew
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Today, on saturday the 17th, the touring party is going to leave behind the rainy UK to depart on the equivalent of a senior rugby tour to south africa for two weeks. with matches not commencing for a number of days and the daunting 12 hour flight ahead of them, students decided to wind down and relax, as this was also the first day of summer holidays after a stressful year at school. TRAVELING....Now we have left school, we began what would be a 27 hour long shlep to cape town. at first all went smoothly, but with a particular student losing their bording pass temporarily (mentioning no names, Alex Martin!), the process of checking in was slowed down considerably. Going through security went fine and soon enough we were boarding the plane. Everyone settled down well for the 12 hour flight to Jo'burg. the food was, er, nice, and there was minimal sleep. then, after arriving in Jo'burg, we collected our luggage and spent roughly an hour and 10 minutes getting the bags ready for the domestic flight. The domestic flight was delayed, by over an hour. Great! However, up to an hour and a half later than predicted, we arrived at Stellenbosch RA and went into our rooms. J. Harms Day 3 - stellenbosch Rugby academy
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