Michaelhouse eyes another victory as they face the Candies

This season has been good for Michaelhouse thus far and they will look at extending their winning ways whereas Pretoria Boys’ High School go into the fixture looking at rebuilding their season after a mixed bag of results thus far. 

Michaelhouse venture up the escarpment from the quiet midlands to take on a strong Pretoria Boys’ High School at Brooks Field with the first XV starting at 13:10. 

Catch all the action live on SuperSport Schools (www.supersportschools.com).

The Candies are coming off of the back of a convincing win over St Bendict’s College away last weekend where the team managed to win by a margin of 19 points. Vice-captain Shaun Schurmann putting in another stellar performance for his team. 

Michaelhouse enjoyed an off weekend with the private schools having a midterm break. In their previous match the team beat a very competitive Durban Boys High School 31-27 at Meadows, where Luke Davidson kicked with sniper-like precision and will most likely enjoy kicking at altitude that the Highveld offers. 

Wandile Mlaba and inside centre Campbell Ridl, have both recently been selected for the Sharks u18 Craven week team, who will be going down to George later in July. Both players will want to put in big performances in their final exchange with Boys High. 

Looking back at the start of the season Pretoria Boys High School have made several changes to their starting XV, bringing in several new players including flanker Etienne Du Preez and lock Seth Venter both players wanting to cement their positions. 

Benchmarking these two teams, both sides have lost their respective matches to Hilton College this season with Michaelhouse going down (20-17) and Pretoria Boys’ High losing away from home (39-15).

Historically, these two teams have only faced each other on six previous occasions, with the first match taking place in 1945, where Pretoria Boys High School won 8-0. Overall, both sides have won three matches each and would lean to a very even spread of results. In the last encounter back in 2016 Michaelhouse won 17-11.

On paper and based on the most recent set of results Michaelhouse enters into the match as favourites, but the Candies do have home advantage. The red, white and green have shown during the course of the season that they are very capable of playing some fantastic rugby.

Supporters can expect a high-quality match, where we can expect classic Gauteng weather conditions on the day, making for a great day out.  

The teams:

Pretoria Boys’ High: 15 Tebogo Nchabeleng, 14 Itumeleng Baloyi, 13 Ntsako Ndlhovu 12 Rickus Wessels, 11 Ompfuna Jack Tsanwani, 10 Justin Tattersall (captain), 9 Joshua Naude 8 Panayiotis Ellinas, 7 Stephen Adams, 6 Etienne du Preez, 5 Tshepiso Shikibana, 4 Seth Venter, 3 Kitso Mokena, 2 Shaun Schurmann (vice-captain), 1 Randy Muzungu.

Michaelhouse: 15 Murray Baker (vice-captain), 14 Graham Wynne, 13 Campbell Ridl, 12 Tom Baguley, 11 Leo Muziva, 10 Luke Davidson, 9 Jack Hughes, 8 Wandile Mlaba, 7 Fortune Mpofu (captain), 6 Tristan Arde, 5 Michael Thornton, 4 Jordyn Kleynhans, 3 Luthando Buthelezi, 2 Thabo Njapha, 1 Aphiwe Shelembe.

Fixtures:

u14A – 9:00  (Dorey Near)
u15A –  10:00 (Oehley Far)
u16A –  11:00 (Oehley Far)
u19B –  12:00 (Brooks Field)
u19A –  13:10 (Brooks Field)