The St Andrew’s College 1st XI participated in the St Stithians’ Easter Festival, and although they only won one match out of 5, 3-0 against Falcon College, the improvement in the performance of this young and inexperienced side was a pleasure to witness. The work-rate and commitment of the team was of a high standard. In the final match of the festival against St Stithians’, St Andrew’s lost 1-0 but certainly had the better of the game.
Both the U16A and the 1st XI participated in the Independent Schools Hockey Festival in Grahamstown, in which St Andrew’s hosted 10 schools from across the country.
The 1st XI had a good start to the festival beating St Andrew’s from Bloemfontein 3-2, but after this the opposition proved to be tough. The matches against Michaelhouse and York were tightly contested with College losing 1-0 on both occasions, however, both St Albans and St David’s outplayed us and we were lucky to escape with 2-0 defeats on both of these occasions.
The learning curve for the young team has been huge, and we cannot under-estimate the value of playing tough opposition so early in the season.
The U16A side, a young team that had not played much together, came up against some strong opposition. They pushed some of these teams to the final whistle but did not manage to come away with a win. The most notable performances were against the strong St Albans and St David’s sides which they lost 1-3 and 0-1 respectively. The U16A side a gained a great deal from the tournament. .
My thanks to the vast number of people who helped organise the festival, and to all those staff and students who supported the teams at the festival.
Gary Frayne
