SPORTS REPORT: 24 June 2006
Tendeka Matatu has been very good at including as many sports results as
possible on his weekly newsletters but now it is my job to try to give a
little flesh to the bones of those scores. I apologise if I don’t give
all credit where it is due but once again I am glad to report that there
has been a lot more success than failure for Falcon on the sports field.
I recently read an article by the excellent sports-writer, Simon Barnes,
who propounded that losing is far more important in sport than winning,
simply because we experience far more of it. Certainly learning to cope
with defeat is vital in school sport if we are to see sport as an
educational experience. A hollow victory is often much less satisfying
than a defeat in a hard fought match against better opponents. Enough
moralising, let me try to report the news.
HOCKEY
I think the jury is still out on this year’s 1st XI. I don’t know that anyone expected them to be all-conquering but you always hope for the best. Certainly the season began well with victory in a tournament held at CBC involving teams from Matabeleland and beyond. We beat both CBC and Petra, two schools vying to be top in Matabeleland but we have subsequently lost to both even if only by a single goal. The team also did well at the PE festival. At junior level, the U15 and U16 A teams have both done very well and the U14 A side is getting there despite a number of disruptions. We were very pleased to be able to host St John’s for some junior hockey. The 15s and 16s both recorded good wins and the 14s only went down narrowly.
Falcon hosted the U17 national trials which went well by all accounts (I was at Lomagundi) and a good number of Falcon boys gained selection.
Matabeleland A : R de Vries, G Bint, B Gait, P Trethowan, D Zietsman, T Randell, J Randle
Matabeleland B : T Zindoga, B Strydom, G Reid, B Meredith
Zimbabwe A : G Bint, J Randle, P Trethowan, R de Vries
Zimbabwe B : T Randell, T Zindoga, D Zietsman
More recently the Inter House hockey matches were held. I apologise for not having the full results to hand but I can tell you that Oates won the senior event and Founders pipped Oates in the juniors.
RUGBY
I think I have only seen the 1st XV in action once this term and that was on the first weekend when Prince Edward were the visitors. We had lost to them up at the Festival at the end of the holidays and now immediately had a chance for revenge and in what I thought was a good performance we achieved that. There are some tricky matches still to come but so far in term time, the team has only lost once, up at St John’s last week. Off the top of my head, the 2nd XV is still unbeaten though they had a draw against St John’s. At junior level the results have been mixed but that is often the case and we know that when they come through to the senior levels they will produce teams that are more than a match for other schools.
National U14 and U19 teams have been chosen with the following boys from Falcon:
Zimbabwe U14 : B Shaw
Zimbabwe U19 : G Simpson, B Grobler, B Stewart, G Gavazzi
SOCCER
Last week it was good to see the 1st team win the Kambarami Trophy. Not to take anything from the boys it would have been good to see more competition on the day. Mvuthu High School were really not up to the challenge and CBC who had played out an entertaining draw with us earlier in the term were definitely off colour. In the Coca Cola competition we qualified comfortably for the second stage by beating How Mine and Sihlengeni but fell at the second hurdle in a close contest with Mzingwane.
The juniors have had a number of matches also against local schools. The U14 side has found the going tough but U15 and U16 teams have played out some good games and earned some good results.
In House matches before the first fixture free, Hervey ran out the winners of the junior competition.
SQUASH
I will have to be honest and say that I don’t have any details of how our squash teams are doing this term but we do have three teams in the Bulawayo Winter League. I hear news of some wins and some losses but couldn’t tell you how any of the teams is faring overall. Next time perhaps!
Richard Harrison
24 June 2006