Rugby 2006 in Perspective
Uplands College 1st Rugby XV has had a superb season.The season started with the traditional warm-up fixture against Hoërskool Rob Ferreira’s 2nd XV. Uplands won the game convincingly by 53-10, with newcomer Keith Trytsman scoring three tries. The second match was against traditional rivals, Penryn College. Penryn was a much-improved side, but Uplands managed to score three tries and won 15-3.

The highlight of the year was undoubtedly the rugby tour to Argentina and Chile. The first match was against The Grange School from Santiago in Chile. Uplands struggled initially to adapt to the Chilean style of play, with refereeing and interpretation of rules making it more taxing. Uplands eventually won an exciting match 31-29. The second match was against Vina Del Mar Rugby Club. Uplands played an expansive game and ran in eight tries to win the match 52-7. Lebogang Motsepe and Ryan Thomson each scored hat tricks. The third match of the tour was against Salto Grande Rugby Club in Concordia, Argentina. It was evident that the Uplands players were finding their rhythm and started to play as a team. The final score was 43-0 in favour of Uplands College. The fourth match was against Mariano Morena Rugby Club from Buenos Aires. Uplands scored nine tries and won 56-5. The final match was against Cardinal Newman, one of the top schools in Argentina. Both teams were prepared to throw the ball around and spectacular tries were scored. The match was drawn 33-all with both teams scoring five tries. Ryan Thomson, Chris Wakefield, Lebogang Motsepe, Michael Craig and Sean Wright were the try-scorers.

Back in South Africa, Uplands played against St Peter’s College at a rugby festival hosted by Cornwall Hill. The crowd was in awe with the running rugby the boys displayed and Uplands won 52-7. Our first league fixture was against Komatipoort Academy which we won 25-0. The other league fixtures were Lowveld High School (won 41-7), Hoërskool Barberton (won 28-12), Penryn College (won 35-20), Hoërskool Bergvlam (won 24-10) and Volkskool Carolina (won 55-7). Lebogang Motsepe earned his 50th cap for the Uplands 1st Team against Carolina and became the first player ever to do so.

Uplands hosted the Mpumalanga Small Schools Semi-Finals and beat the powerful Piet Retief side by 14-5. This meant that they had to play the Mpumalanga Final against Hoërskool Volksrust. The fixture clashed with the bi-annual Independent Schools Rugby Festival in KZN. Schools like Bishops, Hilton College, Michaelhouse, Kearsney, St Albans, St Charles St Benedict’s and St John’s thrilled the spectators with some enthralling rugby throughout the Festival.

Uplands’ first match was against Clifton College from Durban. Uplands emerged as victors 33-7. The second game against St Andrews was a hard-fought contest, but Uplands managed to win the match by 26-12. The third and final match, regarded as one of the Festival bests, was against Michaelhouse. Uplands showed determination and produced outstanding rugby against a formidable side. The final score was 32-29 in favour of Michaelhouse. Uplands scored four tries, with Lebogang Motsepe scoring two, and Matthew Rosenfeldt and Ryan Thomson scoring one each. Thomson added the rest with the boot.

The Mpumalanga final was played the following weekend against the defending champions, Hoërskool Volksrust. The Volksrust boys were highly motivated and played aggressive and clinical rugby. The Uplands boys were 21-3 down with 20 minutes to go. Some changes at half-time sparked Uplands into action. The boys scored four scintillating tries in the second half , but they had unfortunately left it too late and went down 27-28. The try-scorers were Lebogang Motsepe with two tries and Paul Lagerwey and Chris Wakefield scoring one each. Ryan Thomson slotted two conversions and one penalty. This meant that Uplands again qualified to play for the Beeld Trophy. They thrashed Hoërskool Orkney 38-8. The rugby season came to an unfortunate end by losing to Hoërskool Bekker (the Lions champions) by 24-8 in the Quarter Final of the Beeld Trophy.

The team scored 111 tries in 21 matches and scored a total of 718 points. Ryan Thomson was the top points scorer with 243 points, which included 20 tries. Lebogang Motsepe scored an amazing 31 tries in the season and is the leading try-scorer in South African schoolboy rugby. Captain, Paul Lagerwey, has been accepted to the Sharks Academy for 2007.

Three of our First Team players earned their provincial colours: Keith Trytsman played for the Pumas U16B team at the U16 Inter-provincial tournament in Polokwane. Lebogang Motsepe and Ryan Thomson represented the Pumas U19A side to play at the NW University Inter-provincial Week in Potchefstroom.