admin The COTTCO schools festival is sheduled to start on April 29.
“This was a great experience for all of our boys and I was very proud of their performance,” said Hewitt.
“They now have a short rest before we start our preparations for COTTCO and this years’ season.
“I believe the boys will do well at COTTCO after their good performance at the festival am sure all will be well.
“We would like to thank the parents for their continued support as well as our sponsors, Health International, and Body Active Gym for making a tour like this possible.”
He said the festival in Johannesburg was a quality event.
“St John’s Johannesburg Easter Rugby Festival is a very well-established festival and they were amazing hosts.
“So it was a great honour to have been invited to participate alongside some of South Africa’s top schools,” said Hewitt.
“Overally, this was a very beneficial festival in our preparations for the season as we played three tough games against quality opposition.
“It gave us an opportunity to try combinations and give a number of young players exposure to a higher level of rugby. I was extremely proud to see the results of the boys’ hard work coming through in their games.”
St John’s Harare first match was against New Orleans where they came through with an 8-5 win courtesy of a penalty from Kurt Burger and a try from Ryan Wilson.
On their rest day, St John’s boys trained hard and ironed out errors from their first game in preparation for their next game against the hosts, St Johns College Johannesburg.
St John’s Harare defended extremely well and tackled well against a much bigger team and came away with a well-deserved 18-15 win.
Their points came from two penalties and a conversion by Kurt Burger and a try a piece by Cole Bond and Shane Snater.
“Our third and final game was against the highly-rated Windhoek Gymnasium. We started strongly and had the better of the first half, trailing 7-6 at half-time. We then made a few errors in the second half and gave away soft tries, eventually going down 40-6,” said Hewitt.
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