Rugby welcomed at John Wesley
It is the first time since the school's inception that rugby has been added as a school sport.
A NEW chapter was ushered in and history was made at John Wesley School in Pinetown, when it introduced rugby to its sporting curriculum recently.
“We are an ambitious school,” said Darron Tarr, the deputy principal of John Wesley School. “We are growing steadily and want to start competing against other established schools in a variety of disciplines and if we want to compete against them, we have to compete in the disciplines they offer.”
The decision to introduce rugby was made in 2012. “The traditional strengths of the pupils at our school lies in soccer and netball. We then started to wonder how well they would take to the new sport as there is a strong rugby culture in South Africa, it felt like a natural progression,” said Darron.
A survey was conducted among the parents as to whether or not rugby should be added to the sporting agenda and 92 per cent of the parent boy responded positively.
At the end of 2012 the training began. Instead of jumping straight into 15-a-side rugby, they aimed at 7-a-side teams to ensure the players were well equipped to tackle their first games.
The coach, Sonez Barnard, played for the both the women’s side of the Blue Bulls and the Lions and was also part of the Springbok Junior Touch Rugby team. She anticipated the training to be a lot more difficult than it was as the players grasped the sport and its mechanics quickly.
“Having rugby as a school sport really opens a lot of doors for the Grade 7s that are applying to high schools,” said Sonez.
She noted that the training period for the various rugby teams was the longest training time for any sport offered at the school but the boys persevered and had their game faces on when they took on Berea West Preparatory School recently. The U11 team lost their first game 15-5, the 2nd team won 25-5 and the 1st team lost 20-15. “I was very happy that we came out injury free and was really impressed with the results. The boys are all so excited for their next games. We also have to thank Berea West for their accommodating spirit when hosting the game, but they definitely brought out their big guns when on the field,” said Sonez.
