Sixteen young Blue Bulls invited to Junior Springboks trials
The Blue Bulls and Western Province are again dominating the group of 56 players invited to a Junior Springbok trials camp in Cape Town next week.
Three bronze medal winners from last year’s World Rugby Under-20 Championship, JT Jackson, Tinus de Beer and Marco Jansen van Vuren (Golden Lions), are amongst an exciting group of 56 players invited to a Junior Springbok trials camp in Cape Town early in April.
Jackson, De Beer (both Blue Bulls) and Jansen van Vuren (Golden Lions) were part of the 2015 squad which helped the Junior Springboks to third place at the Under-20 tournament in Italy.
The 2016 tournament takes place in Manchester, England in June.
The group will assemble in Cape Town and will spend almost a week at a training camp before the squad will be trimmed. As in the past few years, the Blue Bulls (16) and WP (18) again have the most players in the squad.
The training squad will be based in Newlands during their six-day stay in the Mother City and will have several planning and on-field training sessions before the all-important set of matches on 8 April at City Park Stadium in Crawford.
Dawie Theron, his management and staff members of SA Rugby’s Rugby Department have been working hard behind the scenes to put the necessary arrangements in place for the squad assembly, training camp and trials.
Theron said he was keen to start with the on-field preparations for the tournament.
“The announcement of the trail group is the culmination of a lot of hard work behind the scenes,” according to Theron.
“Unfortunately, we will not be able to play training matches this year against the Varsity Cup Dream team or Argentina. That has resulted in a change in our familiar approach of the past two years or so. However, we are planning several matches against local club sides and hope to finalise those fixtures shortly,” Theron concluded.
The Blue Bulls players who were invited to be part of the Junior Springbok trials squad are:
Jan-Henning Campher (hooker); Tinus de Beer (flyhalf); Aston Fortuin (lock); Stedman Gans (centre); Denzel Hill (No 8); Jaco Holtzhausen (prop); JT Jackson (centre); Manie Libbok (flyhalf); Andell Loubser (wing); Franco Naude (centre); Divan Rossouw (wing); Hendre Stassen (lock); Eli Snyman (lock); Gavin van den Berg (prop); Franco van den Berg (prop); Luigy van Jaarsveld (No 8).
