The Westville Boys’ High School’s rugby 7’s team travelling to Dubai as the Westville Gryphons started their campaign on day one against the Barbarian team from Mauritius. In the first match, the boys where really fired up and scored 6 tries in the first game and conceding one try in the second half.
Tries in the first match were scored by, Asakhe Fakude, Gustav Du Rand, Shane Dormehl, Josh Forsyth and 2 tries by Kyle Forsyth. Final score was 30 – 7.
The second game was against the Northern American Barbarians coached by the well-known Waisale Serivi the world’s best 7’s player from Fiji. This was an epic game with the most unbelievable stats. In this game, there were no scrums and only one line-out. This was a tremendous game of defence and attack by both teams and keeping the ball in play for the duration of the game. At the end whistle, it was the Westville team that converted two of their three tries and Northern American Barbarians missed all their kicks.
This was also a man of the match performance from Kyle Forsyth scoring all three tries for Westville. Kyle Forsyth also converted one of the tries with Dylan Labuschagne adding a conversion. The final score 19-15 for the team from Westville.
Day two the WBHS team started slow and made the mistake of underestimating the Peregrines team from Boland. They lost the last pool game 17-19. Tries were scored by Gustav Du Rand, Jono Reineke, Josh Forsyth and one conversion by Kyle Forsyth.
This left the WBHS team in the 2nd position after the pool games. As there were five pools there were places for the three best losers. WBHS went through as the 2nd best loser and was set to play the North American Barbarians in the Quarter final of the cup. After the pool game against this team the WBHS team knew it will be a gruelling match with the North American team having the edge. WBHS was determined not to make the same mistake twice in one day and really started the game on the front foot and tries were scored by Kyle Forsyth, Gustav Du Rand and two by a match winning performance Jono Reineke. Conversions by Kyle Forsyth and Nqubeko Mkwanazi. Final score was 24-12.
This saw WBHS advance to the semi-final of the cup on day 3.
The last day the atmosphere was electric in Dubai. The 1st Cup Semi-final WBHS vs Cape Barbarians from South Africa and the 2nd Cup semi-final was the North-West Barbarians from South-Africa vs Northern American Lions. WBHS with injuries by Josh Porter (ancle), Andrew Lotz (Concussion) and Shane Dormehl (Quad), saw WBHS take the field with only 2 reserves. This was a gruelling encounter that with WBHS getting two yellow cards for players not rolling away and the Cape Barbarians one yellow card. This added to the tension as the final whistle going with the score 17-17. This meant the game had to go into extra time sudden death. This is 3min of play with the first team to score winning the game. As WBHS received their yellow card close to the final whistle they had to start the sudden death with 6 players on the field. It was tense and the WBHS team kicking off had to defend like Lions with only 6 players on the field. Great determination at ruck time saw a good turn-over with the ball being spread to the speedster on the wing Jono Reineke. Jono brought the WBHS supporters and bench up to the side-line as he out-sprinted the cross defence by scoring his second try of the game but this one being the crucial match clincher. Other tries were scored by Kyle Forsyth and Stanley Giani with one conversion by Dylan Labuschagne.
This was an amazing result as it saw the WBHS team in their first appearance in Dubai in the Cup final.
This saw the WBHS team prepare to run out onto the main field in front of a crowd of approximately 40 000 spectators of around the world.
With great expectation, the boy’s faced an uphill battle against a North-West Barbarians team with players from NWU. WBHS took the field and what an experience it was for these 12 school boys. WBHS still only with 9 players were determined to face the giants. With the start of the whistle it was NWU that controlled the game with their physicality. But great determination saw WBHS come away with the ball and score the opening try through Jono Reineke with the conversion by Kyle Forsyth. NWU Barbarian’s scored twice after that try to make the half-time score 7-10. AS the second half kicked off it was NWU Barbarians scoring two tries and two conversions to take their score to 24. WBHS added to their score by a try from Jono Reineke and converted by Kyle Forsyth. The last try was scored by the WBHS player Asakhe Fakude. It was a great game and wonderful experience for the WBHS team. The final score 19-24 to the North-West Barbarians. WBHS taking the silver medal.