The Marius Schoeman Sport Festival, more widely known as MS Sevens, will take place from 4 to 6 September on the grounds of the prestigious Paarl Gimnasium High School, promising yet another exciting sporting event in the heart of the Cape Winelands.
The festival was officially opened at an event, hosted at Blacksmith’s Kitchen in Paarl, by the eponymous legend of South African rugby himself, current high-performance manager and former captain of the SA Rugby Sevens team (Blitzboks), who is also a Paarl Gim alumnus. Spectators can look forward to live music and tournament coverage on SuperSport, and a variety of prizes up for grabs.
During the launch a live draw was broadcast on SuperSport channel 216 announcing the u-12, u-15 and u-17 sevens rugby teams and participating schools, together with the pools in which they will compete.
Schoeman told the gathering that this year marked the ninth anniversary of the festival and the seventh year it has been staged at Paarl Gimnasium. The Covid-19 pandemic prevented the tournament from taking place in 2020 and 2021.
This year the tournament will be played across five rugby fields, six netball courts and two astro-turf hockey pitches, involving approximately 2 144 players over three days
Pools
Participating schools include Paarl Boys’ High, Paarl Girls’ High, Paarl Gimnasium, Paulus Joubert Secondary and Noord-Eind Primary and Boland Landbou High School in Paarl, along with several schools from Cape Town and beyond. For the first time MS Sevens has also welcomed an international participant, a school from Zimbabwe eager to join the competition.
The rugby sevens competition features eight pools of four teams each, comprising 32 teams in the u-12 section, 32 in the u-15 section and 32 in the u-17 section, totaling 255 matches over three days.
Hockey Fast Five, a recent addition to the festival, will see both boys’ and girls’ teams competing in 356 matches over two days. The u-12 category features 14 teams per division in two pools of seven, while the u-15 boys’ and girls’ categories each include 12 teams in two pools of six. The u-17 divisions mirror this structure, with 12 teams per category competing in two pools of six.
Netball Fast Five, also newly introduced, comprises 16 u-12 teams in four pools of four, 20 u-15 teams in five pools of four, and 20 u-17 teams in five pools of four amounting to 144 matches across two days.
Giving back
The MS Sevens is not only about promoting sport, but also giving back to deserving underprivileged youth. Among other initiatives, the u-12 Rugby Sevens Player of the Tournament will be awarded a scholarship to attend Paarl Gimnasium High School in 2026.
Bradley Hallett, Operations and CSI Manager at the Amdec Group, a privately-owned property investment and development company in South Africa, who attended the opening of the MS Sevens at Blacksmith’s Kitchen, said it was an honour for the company to be associated with the tournament and it looked forward to making a meaningful contribution to the community.
Another way in which the sport festival is giving back is through the Amdec Blitz Sevens Rugby Team, an u-17 rugby team drawn from the Be the Difference (BtD) Foundation, a non-profit organisation focusing on youth development through sport, nutrition and youth upliftment programmes based in Cape Town. The Amdec Group sponsors this team.
