We had a good turnout for the first matches of the season, including two players who making their first appearances for the Cougars.

The first match was against Madras and the boys looked rusty in the first half, spending a lot of time running across the pitch and went into the break one down. After half-time, the boys were much more direct and played some great offloading rugby. In the end, they were unfortunate to only draw 1-1.

Our next match was against a very strong Stewarts Melville team. The whole team played really well, but lost 5-3 in a match that could have gone either way.

Our third match was against the weaker of the Howe teams and we ran out easy winners (4-0), with some good tries. However, some of our play was not as good as in the earlier matches.

We finished up against the strong Howe team and continued with some of our sloppy play in the first half and trailed 2-0 at the break. However, the boys started the second half on fire and scored two tries to draw level within a minute of the restart. Howe retook the lead, but the boys continued to work hard and do the right things and got their reward, scoring with the final play of the match to get the draw. 3-3 was a fair reflection of the match.

Overall the boys played really well and the new boys fitted in to last season's successful team very well.