{"id":93240,"date":"2026-04-07T14:12:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=93240"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:12:22","slug":"kempies-pieties-exit-saints-easter-festival-with-victories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=93240","title":{"rendered":"Kempies, Pieties exit Saints Easter Festival with victories"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_93273\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93273\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-93273\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Saints-Fest-War-Cry-2026-400x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-93273\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The hosts upped the hype of their festival with some of their popular war cries. Photo: <strong>Debbi Adcock<\/strong>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The tables were turned on Monday, the final day of the <strong>2026 Saints Easter Rugby Festival<\/strong>, when\u00a0<strong>St John&#8217;s College (Harare)<\/strong>, who had gone unbeaten in their previous two games <a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/st-charles-defeats-kempies-rams-edge-out-clifton-at-saints-easter-festival\/\"><strong>against Clifton College<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/rams-overcome-st-stithians-mali-xv-downs-clifton-at-saints-easter-festival\/\"><strong>St Stithians College<\/strong><\/a>, went down to <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Pietersburg.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Zimbabweans fell behind 0-7 early but trailed only 13-14 at the half-time break, but <strong><em>Pieties <\/em><\/strong>hit a higher gear in the second stanza and powered clear to record a 38-18 win.<\/p>\n<p>Their forward power made all the difference, with the Polokwane school twice getting over the try line from driving mauls, while also setting up a third with a crash ball from five metres out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Kempton Park<\/strong> made their intentions clear early in their 38-17 victory over the <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Garsfontein Invitational XV<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Kempies<\/strong> <\/em>were eager to end the festival on a winning note, and they made a sound start, with their eighthman <strong>Christian Nixon<\/strong> picking up and powering over with a route one ball in the third minute.<\/p>\n<p>After making a dream start, Kempton Park continued to play at speed, forcing <em><strong>Garsies<\/strong><\/em> into a heavy dose of tackles.<\/p>\n<p>Outside centre <strong>Guillaume Botha<\/strong>, who had consistently broken through opposing defences over the three days of play, continued to break tackles and was rewarded with two tries.<\/p>\n<p>Garsies replied with consolation tries through hooker <strong>Erlo van Aswagen<\/strong> and scrumhalf <strong>Ethan Wepener<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Flyhalf <strong>Katlego Labelo<\/strong> was accurate off the kicking tee throughout the festival and converted both. He also added a tidy 45-metre penalty with his trusty boot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scorers:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Kempton Park 38 (21) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: <strong>Guillaume Botha<\/strong> (2), Christian Nixon, Bjorn Hardy, Luca du Plooy, Reece van Loggenberg. Conversions: Heinrich Burger (4). <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Garsfontein Invitational XV 17 (11) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: Erlo van Aswegan, Ethan Wepener. Conversions: Katlego Lebelo (2). Penalty: Lebelo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Pietersburg 38 (14) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: N\/A. Conversions: Juan Randall (5). Penalty: Randall. <strong>St John&#8217;s College (Harare) 18 (13) &#8211;<\/strong> Tries: J. Rudland, Riley Ettlin. Conversion: T Chimuera. Penalties: Chimuera (2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The tables were turned on Monday, the final day of the 2026 Saints Easter Rugby Festival, when\u00a0St John&#8217;s College (Harare), who had gone unbeaten in their previous two games against Clifton College and St Stithians College, went down to Ho\u00ebrskool Pietersburg. The Zimbabweans fell behind 0-7 early but trailed only 13-14 at the half-time break, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":93273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93240","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\/93240","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=93240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}