The two biggest match-ups during week one of the first round of the BDCE Campus Cup was Marlow Landbou vs Hoërskool Sentraal of Bloemfontein and Marais Viljoen vs HTS Witbank. These two matches gathered almost 8 000 votes during the three voting days during the opening round of the first virtual schools' rugby championship. 

The tie between the Wolramme of Cradock and Tralies went down to the wire with Marlow Landbou edging Sentraal by gathering 53% of the votes. Just over 3 400 votes were cast in this match with Marlow securing just over 1 800 votes to secure the win.

Marlow Landbou will face another Free State team Bothaville in the second round of the competition which will take place in two weeks' time.  

Marais Viljoen of Alberton and HTS Witbank's match-up was even closer as the former won by getting 51% of the over 4 200 votes cast during the clash. There were less than 100 votes that separated the two schools. 

The closest encounter during the first week was between Jan Viljoen of Randfontein and Hoërskool Douglas as percentage-wise they split the votes in half with Jan Viljoen coming out on top in the end by just a couple of votes. In the end, it was only three votes splitting these two schools.  

In total seven of the 64 matches during the first week came down to a single percent splitting the two schools. Diamantveld vs Ermelo, President Steyn vs Leeuwenhof, Nico Malan vs Frikkier Meyer, Marais Viljoen vs HTS Witbank, De Aar vs Wagpos and HTS John Vorster vs Framesby were all decided by a single percentage point. 

This indicates that every vote will count if a school wants to win the grand prize of R15 000 for being crowned the first champion of the BDCE Campus Cup later this year. The champions will also receive supplements from USN worth R8 000. The losing finalist will take home a cool R10 000, while the best placed of the smaller schools will receive R5 000 in cash. 

Every tag of a friend within the comments and sharing of the matches will play a major role in who will be walking away with the big prize in September.

Our title sponsor, BDCE (Business Development Centre of Excellence), provides SETA Accredited Learnerships, Accredited Training, Skills Development, Non-Accredited Training, and Short Courses for businesses. Please have a look at what they offer by clicking on their banner or highlighted name in the paragraph. 

The first round of the competition is played over two weeks. With 128 schools taking each other head-to-head to book their place in the second round. Next week another 128 schools will lock horns as they will look to book their place in the next round. 

The competition is a knock-out tournament like the FA Cup (in English soccer) or the former Lion Cup (SA Rugby competition). The winner of each match/tie is determined by who gets the most votes in the match-up.

The only way to vote is by doing it on the Facebook post made by School of Rugby. The post may be shared with groups and pages of the schools as well as by friends/alumni. Voting is done by clicking on the school's logo you want to vote for. 

Show support to your school or community by voting them to the next round. The competition will take nine-week in total and your school will need your support for eight of the week if they are going to be crowned the first virtual champions of South Africa. 

DigiCampus is also one of our sponsors that made this unique competition possible. They provide online video lessons of the CAPS curriculum from Grade R to 12 for all subjects. If you have a child in school during these uncertain times - they provide an excellent free service in helping schoolchildren with an extra resource to better their grades. 

For more information about the competition visit our website www.schoolofrugby.co.za or download the School of Rugby app on the Google Playstore. If you are an iPhone user you could also download the app by going to app.schoolofrugby.co.za and clicking on the home button in the right bottom corner and select install application on the device. 

The results from Round 1 (Week 1): 

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