Westville Boys’ High made their annual pilgrimage north to take on Pretoria Boys’ on Saturday the 10th of May. The host team were playing their first game on their home field and were keen to put on a good display in front of a massive crowd of local spectators.
The opening ten minutes was a close affair as both sides battled for dominance up front. Westville were first on the scoreboard after winger Shane Ball made an excellent linebreak and fellow winger, James Wheeler showed a great turn of pace to finish in the right corner. Kyan Braithwaite then added the conversion from touchline. The visitors began to dominate the game territorially and converted this pressure into points when Eigthman, Teigen Erasmus scored under the poles and Braithwaite added the conversion and two penalties to give Westville a comfortable 20 point lead at the halftime break.
The home team came out swinging in the second half and looked to close the deficit on the scoreboard. They were aided by the visitors poor discipline which saw one player yellow carded. Pretoria Boys’ used their numerical advantage to score a try through their Captain, Jake Blew. They were unsuccessful with the conversion but the home team now had their tails up. Westville were able to weather the storm and gradually regained the ascendancy through their excellent defence. Westville scored a further two tries; the first was sparked by a linebreak from centre Wayne Smith and finished by fullback Bradley Smith, the second came from a well executed lineout drive which saw Teigen Erasmus score a brace. Braithwaite added a conversion and a penalty goal to take the final score to 35 – 5, a comprehensive victory for the coastal team.
Westville had an excellent day of rugby up in the high veldt winning 18 games including all the under 14 and under 15 games and all the A team matches , losing only 5 and drawing one match on the day.