Tuks’s rugby players are chomping at the bit to be between the white lines doing what they love – to sidestep, tackle and score on the ruby field.

Hopefully, they will be able to do so on 8 March. It is the day the Varsity Cup tournament is supposed to kick off. Tuks is scheduled to play against Wits on that day.

According to the Tuks head coach, Nico Luus, by then it will be close to a year since the Tuks team took to the field to play a match. It is even longer for the players who will represent the Young Guns (under-20).

“I am starting to see the effects of not being able to play on the players. They need social interaction. The Covid Pandemic was from a Tuks rugby perspective not all bad. The lockdown allowed us to rethink how we go about doing things and exploring new ideas,” Luus said.

He explained that, for the first time, the players had ample time to recover from their injury niggles.

“We tested them recently. I was surprised by the results. They seem to be bettered conditioned than a year ago,” he remarked.

Luus also can’t help but be excited about his player’s academic results.

“They all passed their exams with the necessary merits to enable them to play the Varsity Cup Tournament,” he boasted.

Nothing is left to chance. Luus and his coaching team got an eight-week program in place in the build-up.

“We have been self-isolating for a week and thereafter the players were being tested in small groups. After this phase the players resumed training, but the contact between them was still limited. If any player should show any sign of being ill, they will be quarantined until they had recuperated. There will only be full-contact sessions over the last four weeks,” Luus explained.

Tuks also have cancelled all their friendly games.

“It would be foolish to risk the player’s health. We might play warm-up matches against some of the Blue Bulls’ teams as we know their players are also closely monitored during the current Covid lockdown. To summarise I think we at TuksRugby are blessed. Some of the other Varsity teams have not even started to train,” Luus commented.

He said a decision has still to be taken as to what the format of the Varsity Cup Tournament is going to be.

“Personally, I think we will play in a bio bubble. The teams might all get together at one venue for a week and play two to three games. One week it will the Varsity Cup Tournament and the next the Young Guns and Shield Tournaments. It is rumoured the so-called ‘bubbles’ might be in the Western Cape, Free State and Northwest. Another option would be to have the whole tournament take place in three weeks at one venue, but it might not be viable from an academic perspective,” Luus concluded.

The organisers might even consider postponing the tournament by a month or two in the hope that things will get back to normal. But at this stage, all is pure speculation.

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