The Craven Week is an annual
rugby union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...
organised for schoolboys in the
Republic of South Africa. The tournament started in July 1964, and is named after the legendary
Springbok rugby union player and coach
Dr Danie Craven.
The tournament has its humble beginnings in an idea by
Piet Malan, then Springbok
flanker, in 1949, around the time of the
South African Rugby Board's 75th anniversary. He wanted schools to feature in the celebrations and approached
Danie Craven in
Potgietersrus on how this could be done.
Dr Craven took the idea to his board who decided on getting the 15 schools unions together for a week. The man who kept the idea alive however was one
Jan Preuyt, a former student at the
University of Stellenbosch and teacher at
Port Rex Technical School in
East London. Preuyt had played rugby for
Griqualand West
Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, w ...
and was also the chairman of
Border Schools.
At the time there was no such thing as a South African Schools organisation, and the South African Rugby Board were not involved, so Preuyt and Schalk van der Merwe, Principal of George Randall High school, took the initiative to organise
the first Craven Week tournament on their own.
The competition began with 15 teams in 1964, growing to 28 in 1987 and 32 in 2000. The format was changed in 2001, and now allows for just 20 teams. Each of South Africa's fourteen provincial unions field at least one team, with some unions sending two squads (one from their urban base and another representing "country districts"), plus representation from Namibia and Zimbabwe in most years.
Each year since 1974 a South African schools team has been selected, and the competition has been open to players of all races since 1980 when Craven himself requested that it be done. The competition has since become a hunting ground for talent scouts trying to find the best new players for their provinces and many young upcoming stars see the tournament as an opportunity to further their careers. The format has been replicated at other age and skill levels, including a U18 Academy Week for provincial B sides, the
Grant Khomo Week for U16 teams, and Iqhawe Week for U15 sides which places special emphasis on players from underprivileged or underserved areas.
Currently the tournament is known as the "Coca-Cola Craven Week" with
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It manufactures, sells and markets soft drinks including Coca-Cola, other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. Its stock is lis ...
as the main sponsor of the event.
Results
Despite there being no official final for the Craven Week tournaments, there is a main match every year that features the two best teams at the tournament. The results of these main matches since 1971 are:
* In 1975 and 1976 there were 2 Craven weeks due to the school holidays of the old Transvaal and the rest of SA not corresponding.
See also
*
South Africa national under-18 rugby union team
External links
South Africa Schools Rugby AssociationSchool of Rugby Craven Week WebsiteRugby 365 Craven Week Site
References
{{South African youth provincial rugby competitions
Rugby union competitions in South Africa
1964 establishments in South Africa
High school rugby union