A Difficult Year Ended With A Brilliant RuggasAwards 2020 Evening At Grey College

The schoolboy rugby season for 2020 ended prematurely, some would argue never started due to the Covid19 pandemic.

At Ruggas.co.za we discussed the reasons for and the reasons against awarding the youngsters. It was decided after consulting with several outside parties to go ahead. The decision to proceed was vindicated when I saw the excitement as well as the appreciation in the eyes of the winners.

The awards for the players were:
Player of the Year: Reinhardt Ludwig (Affies)
Most Valuable Player of the Year:  Hardus Rothman (Garsfontein)
Forward of the Year: Rynard Mouton (Monnas)
Back of the Year: Curwin Gertse (Paarl Gim)

The Award of Excellence is awarded to a person or organisation for their efforts in schoolboy rugby. Paul Dobson's who is acknowledged as the father of schoolboy rugby journalism will be sorely missed as he passed away on 20 July 2020. Maybe a lesson in uncle Paul's death and this Award is that it is never to early to acknowledge a giant. Ruggas apologise uncle Paul.

During the voting and final discussion regarding the Coach of the Year award, we shifted our attention from only one year to a period of five years. Peter Rossouw's efforts over the past five years at Paarl Gimnasium made him a worthy recipient.

The 1stXV team of the Year award was a very difficult decision to be made as we were blessed with some brilliant 1stXV teams this year. They all were brilliant from the start of the season and we even considered to drop this award for 2020. We then decided on a formula where we judged the past performances of the coaching staff of each school, the number of contracted players as well as the ruggas.co.za ratings of individual players. Hoërskool Garsfontein was declared the winner after four days of discussions with the members of the panel.

The School of the Year award also needed a shift of focus and we decided to reward the school who made the "biggest" effort to "improve" their rugby for 2020. The appointment of Ryno vd Merwe was a brave move by Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool and received positive reactions from across South Africa. The appointments and changes that were made at Affies were also an indication of an Affies that realised that urgent changes to keep up with the rest of the top rugby schools was acknowledged. Positive hints of a different attitude on the field were also recognised by the Affies supporters but unfortunately, we all have to wait for the "new" Affies until 2021.

The Awards ceremony was held at Grey College and with the brilliant help from "School Sports Live" everybody had the opportunity to be part of the 2020 RuggasAwards.