Sub-union duty for rugby Warriors
A number of Warriors rugby players will be in action at Douglas Mitchell Sports Ground this Saturday.
NOW that premier league rugby is done and dusted for the year, a number of the Riversmead South Coast Warriors will turn their attention to sub-union duty.
The Warriors, or in this instance Southern Kwazulu-Natal North, recently returned from a trip to Maclear where they beat Southern KZN South 59-10.
The South team comprised players from Kokstad, Matatiele and Kapaailand.
The match served as a trial for the main Southern KZN team, who will start the defense of their Ebbo Bastard Trophy at Douglas Mitchell Sports Ground this Saturday.
Entry for the day is R10 each. Don’t let this keep you away from supporting our local rugby players as it will go towards covering costs.
A total of 18 Warriors were selected in the 30-man squad. Opponents for the game are Zululand and the kick-off is at 3pm. The team’s sponsor is KFC.
In the coming weeks there will be away games in Kokstad against Durban sub-union and Newcastle, against Northern KZN sub-union.
“It’s important to take rugby to the ‘platteland’ and we have players in the squad from these inland areas,” said Doug Haralambous, president of Southern KZN rugby.
Warriors players in the squad are: props – Lourens Stapelberg, Tian Malherbe and Chris Sharpe; hookers – Juandré Koekemoer and Jaques Coetzee; locks – Armand Grobler, Jeandré Coetzee and Karel van Rooyen; flanks – Dawie Durrheim, Sean Xulu and Brendon Rademeyer; eighthman – Juan van den Berg; scrumhalf – Chris Mitchell; flyhalves – Graham Hendricks and Ra-Iq Ploker; centres – Tienie Viljoen and Theo Nicholls; fullback – Gregory Classens.
Five of these players, namely Juan, Chris, Lourens, Tian and Tienie will be playing for the Wildebeest Rural (country districts) team in an amateur interprovincial in Kimberley this weekend.
“They’ll be available for Southern KZN for the last two games,” said Doug.
Meanwhile, on the refereeing side, Dawie Snyman was recently invited to the World Rugby Educators’ Course in Johannesburg in June.
He passed the course and obtained a licence to train coaches and referees in the Southern KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Sub-Union.
He is currently the sports coordinator and master in charge of rugby at Creston College, as well as chairman of the Southern KZN Schools’ Rugby.
His fellow whistle man, Quintin van Rensburg, is a teacher and sports coordinator at Hibiscus Primary School.
The KZN Referees’ Association sent him on an exchange programme to officiate in a rugby sevens tournament which formed part of the World Youth Games in Austria earlier this year.
At the Games he was the referee of the final between the USA and Czech Republic.
Upon his return, he was duly promoted by the KZN Referees’ Association and is now on the South African Primary Schools’ Craven Week panel.
“What these guys have achieved is impressive, they’ve done very well,” said Doug.
Quintin will be taking charge of the sub-union game at Douglas Mitchell this Saturday.
In junior news, 14 players have been selected for various KZN Duiker age group teams that will travel to Kempton Park to play in an inter-provincial tournament.
The players are Shyan Assan, André Nell, Tristan Parsons, Jason Eloff and Juan-Dré du Preez (all U13); Kyle Gouws, Lyton Oosthuizen, Brandon Coleman, Enrico Burger (all U14); Tiaan Henderson, Anton Nel, Boyboy Mkhohlwa, Otto Botha and JC van Tonder (all U15).
