It’s a new dawn for CAS rugby in 2025. Cranbrook will face their traditional rivals over five weeks in term two, before taking on ISA schools in a regraded competition in term three.

Cranbrook coach Dean Michniewicz said his side is looking forward to both stages of the competition, starting this Saturday against Aloys.

Overview with Dean Michniewicz: 

“It is a bit of a new start for CAS rugby and all the boys are really excited about it. There’s a little bit of unknown, being the first time we’ve played the competition this way, but it’s exciting,” the coach said.

“Our CAS games obviously come on us a lot sooner, so that’s been our focus.

“We took about 35 boys up to the Gold Coast for a week in the April school holidays.

“We were probably only together for a couple of weeks in March so it was good to get a week to focus on what we needed to focus on ahead of the season. We played a few games as well but the opposition probably wasn’t what we wanted it to be.

“In saying that, it was still a really good opportunity to get to know each other and build towards a big season.

“We’ve also played trials against Shore and Riverview and learnt a lot from both of those games.

“We’ve had a few injuries and lost two of our better players for the season, which is really disappointing for those boys.

“But when one door closes, another one opens and there are opportunities for players to step up, starting this weekend in round one.”

2025 Squad: 

“We’ve got a full front row returning, which is really positive and then we’ve got a lock and one back returning from last season.

“We’ve got another five kids that got a taste of first XV last year, then probably 10 or so year 11 boys who are really looking forward to the opportunity.”

What sort of rugby will we see from Cranbrook this season? 

“Unfortunately, we’ve lost two of the heavier boys in our forward pack, so that’s impacted the size of our team,” Michniewicz said.

“But we’re used to playing against bigger oppositions and traditionally, Cranbrook sides like to move the ball around quite a bit.

“We’re not going to barge through teams, so we want to be particular in the way we play in certain zones of the field, we want to show patience, then we want to be quite deliberate and decisive when we want to attack.

“Moving the ball well is probably the key to our game this season.”

What can we expect across the competition? 

“There’s obviously two parts to this year’s competition and my understanding is that the second half of the competition is based on how your whole school performs in the first half,” the coach explained.

“Looking at the CAS competition, we face St Aloysius’ first up, which is different because we usually play them towards the back end of the season.

“But then we roll straight into the heavyweights and face Knox, Waverley and Barker and they will be big challenges.

“Waverley will be big and brutal as always and Barker are typically very well organised across the park. They’ll be tough but I’m confident our players will give it their all.”