In the week after the Easter Weekend Festivals with most of the "big" schools resting in preparation for the Wildeklawer Festival next weekend, one can be forgiven to also wanting to take it slow in South Africa. New Zealand themselves are also still in preseason mode with St Kentigern's showing in midweek games why everybody is so scared to play against them.
South Africa
Central region - Diamantveld who is "struggling" this year travels to Upington, who has lost all of the four games they played, should enjoy their preparations for the Wildeklawer Festival. Kroonstad AHS travels to Welkom Gim who seems to have again a great team will play in their eleventh game of the season and were beaten once by Grey College (0-29) and drew against Framesby (25-25) at the Kearsney Easter Festival. Noor Kaap should also experience no problems with a Sentraal team who is not looking bad at all but simply is just not in the class of Noord Kaap.
Eastern Cape - A lot of action but almost all of them decided before the kick-off? The game between two struggling teams could provide the best action? Marlow however, should be too strong for Hudson Park, Selborne with an easy win against Queen's while St Andrew's resting and Grey High travelling to Wynberg in the Western Cape.
KwaZulu-Natal- With Glenwood resting it is up to the rest to supply some action. DHS and Kearsney are struggling this year and should be involved in a close battle with DHS maybe just the favourite. Westville travels to Michaelhouse and should be smiling all the way back home while the battle between Northwood and Hilton maybe where I would go if in the area. Northwood looked really good at the KES Festival with Hilton not convincing in their wins against other KZN opponents. Could Northwood pull off the surprise of the weekend? Maybe they might just do it.
Noord Vaal - Apart from the Affies KES fixture it is all up to the "smaller" schools to entertain. The semifinals of the Pukke Prestige series are played at Die Anker and Hugenote and will definately be worth the drive there. The Middelburg vs Noorheuwel the pick of the day with Noordheuwel looking to win some silverware before their problems in the VirSeker Cup division begins. Middelburg is still unbeaten in 2019 and slowly but surely working themselves back into the VirSeker Cup division. Watch this space.
Western Cape (Tony Stoops) - The only really tempting matches see Premier A sides Paarl Gym welcoming Oakdale and Wynberg engaging in their huge multi-code interschools weekend with Grey High School, while upwardly-mobile Stellenberg takes on Outeniqua. For the rest, Boland Landbou host Tygerberg and DF Malan visit SACS, while struggling Brackenfell make the trip into the southern suburbs to face rampant Rondebosch.
Bishops and Paul Roos are only crossing swords from 3rd XV level down as the Young Maties have dispatched a sizable contingent in Japan for the SANIX tournament and the Paarl Boys’ High group travelling to Worcester to take on HTS Drostdy does not include their flagship side.
As far as the Boland goes, the Hermanus vs Swartland match looks like the pick of a fairly ordinary bunch. However, the Rockies will have to find a quick solution to their dismal showing on Tuesday, which saw them crash to a 38-19 defeat to Schoonspruit in the Malmesbury derby despite enjoying a huge majority of the ruck and line-out ball. Other potentially entertaining games are Bonnievale vs Montana, Porterville vs Hopefield, Overberg vs Bredasdorp and Dirkie Uys vs Labori.
New Zealand - A lot of Easter Weekend games was played with only a few games to be played on the weekend. Everybody preparing for the start of the season. But take note St Kentigerns are on a roll.