Why 2025 the Paarl rugby derby is so big for the class of 2020
They are the lost matric generation: The Covid Kids. The ones who in 2020 missed out on the biggest rugby match of their schooling: Paarl Boys High versus Paarl Gimnasium. This is why in 2025 the Paarl rugby derby is so big for the class of 2020, writes Mark Keohane.
This was unfinished business for the class of 2020.
It’s been a long five year wait for them to participate in the Old Boys’ derby week when the two renowned schooling institutions, and two of the most famed, in producing Springboks, square up to determine who gets to walk Paarl’s 11 kilometre Main Street with the broader shoulders in 2026.
Craig Cloete is my oldest and dearest friend. He was a fine schools rugby player and under 20s international. Then the knee went and club cricket was his outlet, aligned to a working profession.
His son Jack Cloete, formerly of Gene Louw primary school, and of Boshaai, played everything as a junior for Western Province, be it cricket, rugby or golf. The latter became his chosen game as rugby, post school, took a back seat.
But the seduction of the derby week and the five year frustration of what so many from both schools missed in 2020 was luring enough to get the young Cloete back on the rugby field in the past month, back in training and ready for the class of 2020 to finally make a statement.
Cloete, a No 10 who was/is as comfortable at No 9, turned back the clock along with some of his best mates as Boshaai triumphed against their greatest and closest rivals.
As everyone who has attended both schools says, it matters more to be No 1 in Paarl than in South Africa.
Both schools often sit one or two in the national school rankings. This season Gimmies, let by the most talked about schoolboy in the past decade, outside centre Markus Muller, are unbeaten in 16 matches. They are coached by former Springboks winger Pieter Rossouw and they are favourites to add to last year’s 30-8 win.
Boshaai have won 15 from 16 and with Sean Erasmus back at the helm as Director of Rugby, it is going to be a lot closer than last year.
Erasmus enjoyed five successive derby wins in his first stint at the school before joining the Lions and heading up the under 20 programme and being part of the senior team’s coaching group.
Since he has returned, so has the consistency and mojo of Boshaai.
Saturday will be huge, as it always is when these two rugby giants clash. The schools have combined for 58 Springboks and both have representation in the current World Cup-winning Springboks squad.
Injured Springboks loose-forward Cameron Hanekom has been in Paarl this week and his presence proved inspirational as Boishaai won.
The victory though was not in the result but in the occasion of finishing something that should have happened five years ago.
Those matrics, like every matric class in the country, were robbed of their crowning moment on the sports field.
For the likes of young Jumping Jack and his mates, it was that they finally got the opportunity to write their final schools rugby chapter.
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