Hudson bask in glory after historic victory

IN A cracking game of school boy rugby, Hudson Park High School first XV registered a famous 28-27 win over Selborne College at Selborne over the past weekend.

It was Hudson’s first-ever win at Selborne and only their third win overall over their college rivals, with the last win coming at Hudson all the way back in 2004. “This is undoubtedly the most significant result in the school’s history,” Hudson coach James Winstanley said.

“Selborne is the hardest place to play in the Border and we always knew it was going to take something special to get the result. The team always believed, we were quiet in our belief but the guys knew they could do it.”

It has been a pretty solid season for Hudson, with them having won nine games, drawn one and lost seven so far, however, it was a remarkable turnaround after they had started the season with four losses on the trot, before turning things around in style.

In this past weekend’s match it did not look as if it would be Hudson’s day as some slick early play from the hosts saw Selborne storm into an early 19-3 lead.

However, Hudson slowly began to work their way back into the game and after left wing Avuyile Mabece scored a converted try, and flyhalf Sine Qeshile went over for an unconverted score the deficit was down to four, before Selborne flyhalf David Coetzer was on target with a penalty to send his team into the break 22-15 up.

Hudson came out all guns blazing after the break, with star fullback Jarred du Plessis going over for an unconverted try.

Hudson then sent a penalty through the uprights to take the lead for the first time in the match 23-22.

Du Plessis went in for his second try of the game to extend Hudson’s lead to six points, but with the conversion missed, it meant Selborne were still well in the game. A good period of sustained pressure led to Selborne’s Stephan Nieuwenhuizen crashing over for an unconverted score to cut the deficit to a solitary point, with Selborne throwing everything they had at Hudson, only for the visitors’s defence to hold up superbly and seal a brilliant win in the end.

“We knew Selborne were going to come hard, it was an un-ideal start from us with them managing those three early scores, but we had not had very much of the ball and once we had our first decent spell with it we got over the line and then again shortly after,” said Winstanley.

“So going into half-time we knew if we could front-up on our defence in the second-half and keep a hold of the ball for longer periods, we would be in with a chance and the guys executed the plan to perfection.”

In other results over the weekend, Queen’s College continued with the momentum built during a successful Cape Schools week where they defeated Rondebosch and Wynberg, to claim a comfortable 32-23 win over Kingswood College, while Cambridge High School also enjoyed a solid win with an impressive 31-17 win over Westering.