Long-range tries lift DHS to win at Jeppe
In 2023, Durban High School (DHS) lost a nailbiter on the Collard Field, in Johannesburg, going down 36-39 to Jeppe High School for Boys. In 2024, on Van Heerden’s Field, in Durban, they beat Jeppe 24-20. On Saturday, the Horseflies returned to Johannesburg and claimed a 24-10 victory.
With the win, DHS improved their record in 2025 to 13 wins and only two defeats, both against unbeaten teams, Paarl Gimnasium and Westville Boys’ High.
Very quietly, School has produced a superb follow-up to their outstanding 2024 season, which, interestingly, concluded with the same 13 wins and two losses record. Their 2025 season is not yet done, however. They visit Northwood on Saturday.
When the teams met in Durban last year, Jeppe entered the game averaging 33 points a match while DHS had surrendered only eight a contest. It finished in the middle ground in favour of coach Peter Engeldow‘s boys. On Saturday, Jeppe repeated their 24-point output, but halved Jeppe’s output.
The visitors made a fine start to their quest for back-to-back wins over the Zebras, with their first points coming from a typically well-practiced and well-executed move. From a lineout five metres out, they hit the ball up through their forwards before feeding their bowling ball inside centre, Zingce Simka, with a flat, long pass.
Jeppe knew what was coming, but not even three tacklers were able to keep the powerhouse midfielder out. It wasn’t a difficult conversion, but Jordan van Wyk pinged his kick off the left upright, leaving the score at 5-0.
From the kick-off, it became something of a tactical kicking battle, with Jeppe playing the game down near the DHS 22, but when the home side bobbled a pass Simka picked up the ball and released left-wing Zenkosi Mthiyane. Hitting the afterburners, he raced down the left-hand touchline for a thrilling 70-metre try in the left-hand corner.
Van Wyk was narrowly wide from the touchline, but School could hardly have hoped for a better start, up 10-0 in the 10th minute.
In the absence of SA Schools A prop, André Poulton, Jeppe came ever so close to surrendering another try when they were shoved off their own put-in, just five metres from their try line. They survived, but DHS forwards’ coach Ronnie Uys must have loved what he saw.
To their credit, Jeppe rebounded, worked their way downfield, and put DHS under sustained pressure. The visitors had a narrow escape when an attempted clearance was charged down, but the in-goal area on Collard Field is small and the ball richocheted out of the field of play.
After DHS’s bright start, Jeppe had begun to boss the territorial battle. However, a decision to try a set piece move rather than kick to touch when they won a penalty only 10 metres from the DHS try line appeared peculiar. The end result was the visitors winning a penalty after effectively contesting a ruck.
Then, when DHS spilled a ball inside the Jeppe 22, a searing counterattack by the home side almost finished with a try, but their final pass, flat to a charging 8th-man Mihle Dyakala was forward.
Right before the halftime whistle, Jeppe’s industry and efforts were rewarded when captain, scrumhalf Talent Sithole, wriggled through the slightest of gaps to dive over from close range. Nehemia Hollenbach nailed the conversion, leaving only three points separating the sides after a fascinating first half of thrust and counter-thrust.
Coach Drikus Venter‘s players then carried the momentum they had enjoyed late in the first half into the second stanza and played a lot of rugby in the DHS half without managing to truly penetrate the rugged defence of the Durban boys.
With 17 minutes of the second half played, a massive clearance kick by flyhalf Jordan van Wyk into the Jeppe 22 was kicked into touch, but it put DHS on Jeppe’s halfway line with possession for the lineout. A pinpoint throw-in to the back enabled DHS to get a rolling maul moving. Then, a couple of dummy runners and two accurate long passes played centre Nathan Aneke into an outside gap.
Aneke, the lightning to his midfield partner Zingce Simka’s thunder, received the ball 45 metres out, pinned his ears back and rounded the Jeppe defence for a spectacular score. It was a gut punch for Sithole and company after they had played so much of the second half in the visitors’ half.
Fullback Cilermo Carolus took over the kicking duties and slotted the kick to, once again, open up a 10-point lead at 17-7.
DHS turned to a slow poison approach in the last 10 minutes, taking it to Jeppe with their pack driving the ball up, drawing the hosts’ defenders in to make strength-sapping tackle after strength-sapping tackle. Jeppe struggled to exit their 22. Eventually, though, they won a penalty, but when their kick for touch missed the mark, they were made to pay.
DHS quickly shifted play from the left-hand touchline back infield and to the right flank. It took only two passes, and Richard Gyamfi saw space in front of him. He raced through from 47 metres out for another five-pointer. Carolus, then, rubbed salt in the Jeppe wound by converting from the touchline.
The ability of DHS to strike from long-range was a feature of the clash. The accuracy of the visitors’ cut-out passes, shifting the ball wide at speed, left Jeppe exposed. If that was something that School had identified in the lead-up to the game – and knowing coach Peter Engeldow’s excellence at analysis, it likely was – they executed what they needed to do extremely well.
Jeppe, as always, kept fighting to the final whistle and it brought them the final say in the game when flyhalf Hollenbach snapped over a drop kick in the final minute. The day, though, belonged to DHS.
Scorers:
Jeppe 10 (7) – Try: Talent Sithole; Conversion: Nehemia Hollenbach; Dropped goal: Nehemia Hollenbach. DHS 24 (10) – Tries: Zingce Simka, Zenkosi Mthiyane, Nathan Aneke, Richard Gyamfi; Conversions: Cilermo Carolus (2).
Results:
u 19 – Jeppe I 20 DHS I 24; Jeppe II 38 DHS II 33; Jeppe III 14 DHS III 41; Jeppe IV 7 DHS IV 29; Jeppe V 0 DHS V 26; Jeppe VI 15 DHS VI 22
u16 – Jeppe A 35 DHS A 14; Jeppe B 7 DHS B 46; Jeppe C 14 DHS C 24; Jeppe D 10 DHS D 8; Jeppe E 21 DHS E 13
u15 – Jeppe A 22 DHS A 26; Jeppe B 27 DHS B 24; Jeppe C; Jeppe D 31 DHS D 20; Jeppe E 40 DHS E 17
u14 – Jeppe A 0 DHS A 15; Jeppe B 9 DHS B 36; Jeppe C 8 DHS C 12; Jeppe D 29 DHS D 32; Jeppe E 20 DHS E 24
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