Last night I decided to go and watch the VirSeker Macro Schools match between Monnas and Florida. Monnas won 89-3 with the match stopped 10 minutes before regular time was up. What else is there to report. Monnas was obvious physically in a much better shape than Florida? The Monnas players were the better players with a lot more talent? Monnas coaches are better than those of Florida? Monnas are a much better team than Florida?
The answers to these questions are not as important as was this match to the advantage of anyone? That brings me to the question - is the Virseker Competition in today's schoolboy rugby relevant or of any value? In the beginning of the season, anyone with half a brain cell and who follow schoolboy rugby could have predicted who will be the winner of the VirSeker Competition with 90% accuracy. And this has nothing to do with being intelligent or even brave.
In the Macro School's there are only a few schools that really stand a chance to lift the trophy, and I believe it to be the same in the other divisions. But we have a Macro A Division and Macro B Division why? My personal feeling is that it has al to do with votes when the next o so important Noordvaal committee elections take place.
In the Puma's division, we have this unique situation where Nelspruit and Middelburg HTS are the only two school who can win. They played on the 07 March, 20 May, 03 June and may even meet somewhere in the playoffs.
In the Bulls Division, three Macro A schools advance to the playoffs and here it gets interesting. In Pretoria, there are 12 schools classified as Macro Schools with Affies, Pretoria Boys High and St Alban's who does not even bother to play in this competition. Only Garsfontein, Menlopark and Waterkloof competes in the Macro A division. So why even bother to play each other before the playoffs.
The Lions and Valke divisions had to merge to provide enough schools willing to compete but only EG Jansen and Monnas have a hope in hell to win this division with EG Jansen experiencing a below average year losing to Monnas 18-52 last weekend.
Then lastly outside the whole equation sits Helpmekaar that is currently no3 in the rankings, yes country wide who competes in the Big School Division. Regtig?
It took Ruggas.co.za just three minutes to get to this conclusion:
The VirSeker Beker and for that matter, the TUKS and all other competitions have no place anymore. The Ruggas.co.za solution is: divide the schools into divisions that bring back strength vs strength matches, which will bring in the spectators and no need to bribe or force the pupils to attend as the sponsors want full stands for the television cameras.
Only seven schools in each division to allow the play of festivals and out of region fixtures. Include all schools no matter their language. Play promotion & regulation between the bottom team and top team from following divisions. And please the schools below is just for an example and must be divided according to strength, not favouritism. Now we just need the grown-ups to behave as adults.
Division One:
Affies, Garsfontein, Waterkloof, Monnas, KES, Helpmekaar and Nelspruit.
And yes Affies I know that you want game time for all your teams, go out and organise it with other schools as you do currently when you play against Helpmekaar etc etc. And Waterkloof and Garsies stop your nonsense sort out your crap and let the children play.
Division Two:
Menlopark, EG Jansen, Eldoraigne, Jeppe, Pretoria Boys High, Kempton Park, Middelburg.
And And And
Easy ne.