The Florida Youth Rugby Boys HS season gets back on track with a full slate of games this weekend. 

Four of the teams in the Boys DI league are 2-0, but not all will emerge from the weekend perfect.

While Riviera Beach Maritime Academy (2-0) plays winless Naples, and 2-0 Tampa plays 0-2 Daytona, the other two 2-0 teams face off.

Orlando was expected to start strong, and they did, allowing just one try in two games. But the Jupiter Sharks have been a bit more of a surprise.

Coach Chris Oosthuizen is happy with two tough wins over Cape Pirates and Daytona.

“We’re getting the job done,” said Oosthuizen, who also coaches the Florida select side. “We’ve got a bunch of really motivated athletes.”

Jupiter returned 13 players from last year, three of whom went to the HS All American winter camp - prop Trevor Brueningsen, prop Joseph Fezza, and 15-year-old scrumhalf Kyle Lazera. Those players, said Oosthuizen, came back additionally motivated to raise their game.

“They have blossomed since the camp,” said the Sharks’ coach, who added that Lazera has “the heart of a lion.”

With the league re-alignment the Florida league is tougher, and longer, and more arduous. Oosthuizen said he likes it and so does his team.

“In the old system you lose two games and you’re on the bottom, but now with nine games you can start slowly, or have a bad week, and come back,” he said. “From an all-star perspective as HP Director, it gives me an opportunity to compare apples to apples. Everybody plays each other and every game is a better measurement of where players are, and where we are as a team.”

That could mean more losses, and perhaps injuries, but Oosthuizen said you can’t worry about that.

“The message I am trying to get to my kids is, if the do the hard work, they will get the results. We know Orlando is a really good, balanced team, so we look forward to the challenge.”

Also on the slate is a relatively unknown Okapi Wanderers, who moved up from DII and started 1-0 with an 18-15 win over Cape Pirates on January 23. But we haven’t seen the best of them yet. Key Biscayne is 0-2, and faces the Wanderers this weekend. Having said goodbye to the older players who started the program, Key Biscayne is rebuilding a little, but could well get a win this weekend.

Also ripe for a win would be Naples, which started very poorly and is yet to score a try, but, as Oosthuizen said, the new league format gives teams the chance to rebound.

This weekend in Florida Youth Rugby Boys DI

Daytona Beach (0-2) v Tampa (2-0)

Jupiter (2-0) v Orlando (2-0)

Okapi (1-0) v Key Biscayne (0-2)

RBMA (2-0) v Naples (0-2)

In DII, meanwhile, it’s been a slow start, but St. Thomas plays Cardinal Gibbons and SRHS plays Boca Raton. Boca lost a close one to Pompano, who won their opener by a big margin.