Markus Muller, captain of Paarl Gimnasium, is making the No 13 jersey the most talked about in schools rugby this year.
In 2024 Muller had observers buzzing with his performances as a Grade 11 First XV player. This year, the outside-centre has been as prominent in the first two months of the schools season, and at the Absa Wildeklawer Week he scored his fourth hat-trick of the season as Gimnasium continued to steamroll opponents, the latest being Noordheuwel.
But it was his performance a week ago, in the traditional north versus south derby against Grey College that set the marker for the season. Muller led his side to victory in Bloemfontein, scoring a brace in Gim’s first visit to Grey College in 20 years.
Paul Roos Gimnasium and Paarl Boys High have made the trek to Bloemfontein every alternate year and hosted Grey College in Stellenbosch and Paarl, respectively. Matches between Paarl Gimnasium and Grey College haven’t happened as often.
Grey College, consistently No 1 or No 2 in the schoolboy rankings, had not lost at home for eight years until Muller’s marauders mowed them down. Paarl Gim’s U16As and U15As also won, and the under 14As drew. The five-year cycle for Gim is a potent one.
Impressive numbers
Muller is an exceptional player, and his 20-plus tries this season include four hat-tricks and three braces. The late Nick Koster, playing for Bishops, Western Province and South African Schools, was the last schoolboy to tally such impressive numbers in a school season.
Koster scored 34 tries in his matric year playing for Bishops, and the tally went past 40 with matches in the Craven Week and for South African Schools.
Muller, with two-thirds of the season still to play, can comfortably convert similar numbers.
The schools rugby scene in South Africa is among the biggest on the planet, and the Western Cape is a national and international powerhouse through the likes of Paarl Gim, Paarl Boys High and Paul Roos Gim, with the latter globally ranked as the No 1 Schools team in 2024, when they finished unbeaten, which included a home win against Grey College.
Biggest schools derby
Paarl Gim and Paarl Boys High’s annual derby, which draws crowds of 20,000-plus, is the biggest schools derby in the world.
The regular schools season finds its rhythm from next weekend, with most of the rugby in the past two months coming in the form of festivals across the country. The festivals attract big audience numbers, matches are televised live on supersportschools.com, and Hannes Nienaber oversees the very impressive ssschoolsplus.co.za digital platform.
Schools rugby has always been big and editors of rugby platforms in South Africa will tell you that the Monday Schools results section gets big reader numbers. The old boys, no matter where they are resident on the planet, want to know how their school's first XV is tracking.
School results and SA Rugby Magazine’s Monday “Saffas Abroad” wraps are two of my favourite reads.
Global dimension
Technology and its advances, platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram and a SuperSportSchools app that exceeds a million downloads, have added a global dimension to the South African Schools rugby scene and the most successful teams have a following bigger than most professional sides in South Africa.
Muller, at 18, could be playing for the Junior Springboks in the inaugural Sanzaar U20 Rugby Championship being played in Gqeberha. He is that good, but there is a ruling that restricts any selection of a schoolboy for the U20s in South Africa.
Only once was an exception made, and that was in 2012 when a Paarl Gim schoolboy flyhalf named Handre Pollard was drafted into the Junior Springboks squad and proceeded to kick them to victory in the final against New Zealand at Newlands.
Pollard was that rare talent who would provide similar heroics later for the Springboks in the 2019 and 2023 World Cup finals.
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