{"id":93004,"date":"2026-04-03T07:02:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=93004"},"modified":"2026-04-03T07:02:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:02:03","slug":"northcliff-kempton-park-start-strong-at-saints-easter-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=93004","title":{"rendered":"Northcliff, Kempton Park start strong at Saints Easter Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-93014\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/57A7093-400x267.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/>On Thursday, the opening day of the <strong>Saints Easter Rugby Festival <\/strong>hosted by <strong>St Stithians College, Northcliff High<\/strong> defended valiantly to keep <strong>St Charles College<\/strong> scoreless at half-time with the score at 10-0.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half, they continued to play with a level of physicality which sometimes overwhelmed the <strong>Pietermaritzburg<\/strong> locals; thus ending the match with an 18-7 victory.<\/p>\n<p>St Charles put their points on the board midway through the second half. After taking a quick tap after being awarded a penalty in the Northcliff 22-metre area, they then played a couple of phases.<\/p>\n<p>Having come off the bench, the fresh and fiery hooker <strong>Braydon Joese<\/strong>,\u00a0picked up from the base of the ruck and drove his way over the line with two defenders clinging to him.<\/p>\n<p>Only a few phases later, the most impressive try of the match occurred. The <strong>Randburg<\/strong> side regathered the ball from kickoff and played a few phases down the blindside, making a handful of metres on each carry.<\/p>\n<p>An offload on the opposition&#8217;s five-metre line found its way to blindside flanker <strong>Ethan Leonette<\/strong>. Upon receiving the ball, he dived through the air to secure five points.<\/p>\n<p>Flyhalf <strong>Reynard Burger<\/strong> set the tone just six minutes into <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Kempton Park&#8217;s<\/strong> 27-15 triumph over <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Pietersburg<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Standing just left of the posts and about 10 metres from the try-line when he received the ball, he then sold a dummy to his opposite man, followed by an electric zig-zag through two defenders in a space about the size of your average elevator. After falling over for five, he then added his own extras.<\/p>\n<p>His peers, left wing <strong>Luca du Plooy<\/strong> and fullback <strong>Ethan Botha<\/strong> also scored their tries with some fancy footwork for two similar tries. Both scored in the first 11 minutes of the second half, and about five minutes apart.<\/p>\n<p>Both received the ball out wide on the left and ran out wide before beating the last defender one-on-one to score. The only major differences between their tries were that Botha&#8217;s run was for about 45 metres and he beat the defender by cutting in, while Du Plooy ran about 35 metres and beat his man by cutting out.<\/p>\n<p>Pietersburg fought hard with tries from locks <strong>Jan-Hendrik Bonneschans<\/strong> and <strong>Brent Vorster<\/strong>, however, it simply wasn&#8217;t their day against an on-song <em><strong>Kempies<\/strong><\/em> team.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scorers:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Northcliff High 18 (10) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: Dayne Van Wyk, Ethan Leonette. Conversion: Jack Woolard. Penalties: Jack Woolard, Jonothan Haw.\u00a0<strong>St Charles College 7 (0) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: Braydon Joese. Conversions: Njabulo Nala.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kempton Park 27 (12) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: Reynard Burger, Luca du Plooy, Ethan Botha, Aubrey Hoskin. Conversion: Reynard Burger (2). Penalty: Reynard Burger. <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Pietersburg 15 (8) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: Jan-Hendrik Bonneschans, Brent Vorster. Conversion: Juan Randall. Penalty: Ryno Mienie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, the opening day of the Saints Easter Rugby Festival hosted by St Stithians College, Northcliff High defended valiantly to keep St Charles College scoreless at half-time with the score at 10-0. In the second half, they continued to play with a level of physicality which sometimes overwhelmed the Pietermaritzburg locals; thus ending the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":93014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93004","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\/93004","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}