Curro returns with Virsekerbeker
Curro Nelspruit's u/14 rugby team won the Virsekerbeker for medium schools with a 40-5 victory over Hoërskool Hoogenhout.
This is the first year since Curro Holding’s inception in 1998 that a Curro school has reached the finals and walked away with the winning trophy.
Going into the final, the team were ranked 15th in the country and had high expectations for themselves.
On Saturday morning they were greeted by a very cold and windy Bethal.
As Hoogenhout were playing at home, there was a massive build-up before the match and they kept Curro waiting in the cold. The Hoogenhout team started off with a bang, and through some ill-discipline and off-side play, retained possession.
They were awarded five penalties in the space of two minutes and managed to move play inside Curro’s 22-metre area. Here the crowd got behind them and they converted this pressure into points when their centre, Jano van der Merwe managed to cross the line.
Curro were clearly not used to playing in such cold and windy conditions and this showed in their handling errors. They adapted to the situation and settled into their game plan.
From then on they dominated the match, quickly scoring three tries in the space of 10 minutes and going into half-time 21-5 up. This took the wind out of the Hoogenhout attack and the crowd.
After a motivating half-time talk, Curro increased the tempo of play and continually played into space.
Hoogenhout could not keep up, and Curro scored another three tries in the second half with Kylo Seteria scoring a well-worked try on the wing, beating two defenders to go over the line for the final try.
On the day, the difference between the teams were Curro’s ability to recycle the ball quickly and move the ball away from the defenders.
