Green Machine ready to rumble
19 Feb 2010
Glenwood 1st XV coach Sean Erasmus believes his side can reproduce the form that saw them reach No 2 on the national schools rankings last year.
The KwaZulu-Natal outfit kick off their 2010 campaign with matches against St Andrews and Dale College in Grahamstown in late March, before playing Monument, Marais Viljoen and Selborne at the Kearsney College Easter Rugby Festival. Glenwood will also be involved in the Wildeklawer Superschools tournament in late April.
‘We aim higher and higher every season,’ Erasmus told keo.co.za. ‘Obviously every year you say goodbye to good players, and last year we had a very settled team which we’d been building towards in previous years. This year is definitely a building phase, but I believe we have the ability to perform against the best.
‘There are six or seven boys returning from last year, and we’ll be looking to them to play big roles. Fred Zeilinga will be instrumental at flyhalf, and [wing] Eddie Smith and [lock] Aalwyn Janse van Vuuren will be important players. But from what we’ve seen from the new boys, they should have plenty of support.’
Erasmus will finalise his squad and name his captain next week, with the last of Glenwood’s three trial matches against local U20 club sides being played on Friday.
‘We’ve put the guys into a lot of contact situations, and trialled them against the local club sides, because that’s where we believe the current school level is at,’ said Erasmus.
‘I’m also taking no chances with the physical conditioning of the players after what happened in 2009. We had some serious injuries last season – broken legs and hurt shoulders – so we’ve taken on a full time biokineticist this time round.’
By Rory Keohane
10 Comments
19 Feb 2010, 12:52 pm
Nepotism!
19 Feb 2010, 13:24 pm
Every rugby school has a bloody easter fest nowadays.
19 Feb 2010, 13:57 pm
It’s spelt ‘Selborne’ Rory
19 Feb 2010, 15:46 pm
Keo got his boetie writing articles now? Sweet
19 Feb 2010, 16:32 pm
Who really cares?
KZN rugby is so weak anyway. All their good players come from Bloem, PE or EL.
20 Feb 2010, 08:40 am
Start building a new Sharks team.
20 Feb 2010, 21:21 pm
Heard yesterday that Glenwood have bought a player who had just started matric at a school called Reddam in Cape Town. I don’t know how true this is, but it comes pretty much first hand. Apparently he had just started matric when he got a full scholarship offer from the Green Machine.If this is true it is rather sad but serves to confirm what everyone has being saying the last few years; that Glenwood have been buying players. I hope it is not true.
21 Feb 2010, 00:39 am
He cant be very good if he was playing for Reddam (extremely weak rugby school) but still sad
25 Feb 2010, 15:04 pm
I hear that there where some injuries to some of the key players in the trials, I saw Fred go down with an ankle injury after scoring a try , and now I hear it was broken , if so this will spell trouble to this unit , I hear there where a couple of other serious injuries resulting from the trials???? Any one care to update
26 Feb 2010, 16:34 pm
Fred will be out for 6 weeks it is his foot.We just hope and pray it heals in time.Must be redy for easter.
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