{"id":39468,"date":"2024-03-28T18:07:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T16:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=39468"},"modified":"2024-03-28T18:07:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T16:07:15","slug":"king-edward-vii-ready-for-battle-at-20th-standard-bank-kes-easter-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=39468","title":{"rendered":"King Edward VII ready for battle at 20th Standard Bank KES Easter Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The King Edward VII<\/strong> “Red Army” is ready to defend their home turf at the 20th annual Standard Bank KES Easter Festival<\/strong> this weekend.<\/p>\n

This year’s event takes place over two days, with the first round of matches being played on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Catch every moment live on SuperSport Schools – Register now<\/a> –<\/strong> Link to the event<\/a><\/p>\n

The hosts take on the mighty Paarl Boys’ High<\/strong> in their first outing. Then, they face Bishops Diocesan College<\/strong> on Monday, in the last match of the festival.<\/p>\n

With a healthy mix of veteran players and young talent, the KES team is aiming high this season.<\/p>\n

They’ve already achieved a victory over an impressive Noordheuwel<\/strong> side but fell short last week against Grey College<\/strong> at the NMI Toyota North\/South Tournament<\/strong>, going down 16-51. They’ll be eager to put that performance behind them, though, and enjoy the backing of their home crowd.<\/p>\n

Boishaai regularly ranks among the best 1st XVs in South Africa, and this year’s squad has made an impressive start to the season, with wins over Garsfontein<\/strong> (38-36) and Jeppe<\/strong> (45-19) at last week’s North\/South Tournament.<\/p>\n

Before that, they also turned the tables on Ho\u00ebrskool Durbanville<\/strong>, thumping them by 73-7 to put last year’s shock defeat to bed.<\/p>\n

When they met the Red Army in the finale of last year’s KES Festival, they had to pull out all the stops to nab a narrow 10-8 victory after going into halftime with no points on the board.<\/p>\n

With Boishaai stamping their authority on every team that has challenged them so far this season, KES will know they have to prepare for a battle on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Bishops will make for an equally compelling challenge on Monday. The Cape Town school celebrates its 175th year this season and showed immense character to bounce back from a loss against Michaelhouse<\/strong> at their Bishops 175 Festival<\/strong> to dramatically edge out St Andrew’s College<\/strong> by a single point in their most recent game.<\/p>\n

Monday’s match will be the first time the schools have met in nine years. In that previous clash, at Jeppe’s 125th Festival in 2015, a star-studded Bishops team recorded a 33-15 victory.<\/p>\n

Andre Manuel<\/strong>‘s hat-trick was supported by a try apiece by Tristan Leyds<\/strong> and Seb Prentice<\/strong>, with Cornel Smit<\/strong> converting all but one of the five-pointers.<\/p>\n

Jeppe<\/strong>, of course, were on cloud nine after their momentous win over Grey College at last weekend’s event. They take on Queen’s College<\/strong> in the penultimate match on Saturday, before squaring off against Brandwag<\/strong>\u00a0on Monday.<\/p>\n

Brandwag begin their campaign at the festival against the visitors from Durban, Northwood<\/strong>, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ben Vorster<\/strong> and Ho\u00ebrskool Eldoraigne<\/strong>, who play against each other on the first day, haven’t met on a rugby field since 2019 when the squad from Tzaneen lifted the “Virseker Beker” after a heart-stopping 37-36 victory over Eldos.<\/p>\n

The KES Easter Festival was first played in 2002, and it was planned to be a one-time occurrence. Since then, however, it has grown into one of the country’s most prestigious festivals. This year, for a first time,\u00a0the event takes place over only two days.<\/p>\n

That change was made by the hosts, who said their goal was to make the festival one that is focused on sportsmanship, camaraderie and development.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, ahead of Saturday’s action, the KES and Jeppe 1st teams did their bit for the development of rugby, helping to coach 60 u16 girls and 92 u13 boys from various local clubs.<\/p>\n

FIXTURES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saturday, 30 April<\/strong><\/p>\n

08:00 –\u00a0<\/strong>Hudson Park vs Parktown Boys’ High;\u00a009:15 –\u00a0<\/strong>Northwood vs Brandwag;\u00a010:30 –\u00a0<\/strong>Bishops Diocesan College vs Dale College;\u00a011:45 –\u00a0<\/strong>Ben Vorster vs Ho\u00ebrskool Eldoraigne,\u00a013:00 –\u00a0<\/strong>Pretoria Boys High vs Selborne College; 14:15 –\u00a0<\/strong>Queen’s College vs Jeppe;\u00a015:30 –\u00a0<\/strong>King Edward VII vs Paarl Boys’ High.<\/p>\n

Monday, 1 April<\/strong><\/p>\n

08:00 –\u00a0<\/strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Ben Vorster vs Queen’s College;\u00a009:15 –\u00a0<\/strong>Paarl Boys’ High vs Pretoria Boys High; 10:30 –\u00a0<\/strong>Northwood vs Hudson Park;\u00a011:45 –\u00a0<\/strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Eldoraigne vs Selborne College;\u00a013:00 –\u00a0<\/strong>Dale College vs Parktown Boys’ High;\u00a014:15 –\u00a0<\/strong>Jeppe vs Brandwag;\u00a015:30 –\u00a0<\/strong>King Edward VII vs Bishops Diocesan College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The King Edward VII “Red Army” is ready to defend their home turf at the 20th annual Standard Bank KES Easter Festival this weekend. This year’s event takes place over two days, with the first round of matches being played on Saturday. Catch every moment live on SuperSport Schools – Register now – Link to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}