Small-Smith to lead SA U18
14 Jul 2010
SA Schools centre William Small-Smith will captain the SA U18 team when they play France on Friday.
Small-Smith will be joined by Free State and Grey Bloem halfback team-mates Kevin Luiters and Johan Goosen. Paul Roos pair Craig Barry and Tshotsho Mbovane will play fullback and wing for the match in East London.
After not making SA Schools, Grey Bloem No 8 Niell Jordaan also joins the High Performance side, while Paul Roos prop Steven Kitshoff ensures the team is dominated by players from the two schools.
The match will be televised on SuperSport 2 at 13:25.
SA Under-18 HP team – Craig Barry, Tshotsho Mbovane, William Small-Smith, Andile Jho, Luqmaan Ismail, Johan Goosen, Kevin Luiters, Neill Jordaan, Sikumbuzo Notshe, Wian Liebenberg, Ruan Botha, Ruan Venter, Allan Dell, Justin van Wyk, Steven Kitshoff.
Subs: Charles Thomas, Gideon Muller, Jason Thomas, Pieter du Toit, Fabian Booysen, Rudi van Rooyen, Paul Jordaan, Patrick Howard.
7 Comments
15 Jul 2010, 10:16 am
congrats
15 Jul 2010, 11:46 am
glad to see patrick howard in there. he was fantastic for Natal and did not make the SA Schools side if my memory has not let me down there….
15 Jul 2010, 11:54 am
This seems to be a strong team (at least of what I’ve seen so far)…
LEKKER BOYTJIES!!!
15 Jul 2010, 13:54 pm
This kid is the real deal! If he joins the Bulls he his our own young Dan Carter. I just hope he is wise enough not to go and join the money hunters at the Sharks or WP. Then again, that entire Grey team is good. Saw them play at a U16 rugby week at Paarl Gym. Boy did they give Waterkloof a hiding!
15 Jul 2010, 17:06 pm
Potent centres. Small-Smith looks like absolute class, although I’d prefer him in a distributing role and Jho as the line breaker. Two very promising players.
15 Jul 2010, 17:18 pm
Patrick Howard on the bench covering 12, 13, 11, 14. Hope he gets a run. Correct… he was overlooked for SA schools (entirely different selectors). Had a great three seasons for Michaelhouse 1st XV (2008,9,10) and a strong Craven Week for the Sharks (last year too) scoring against Leopards and Free State (good hand-off of one ‘W S-S’ to score under the poles against FS)! Was up against it for selection with both Small-Smith and Jho already in the mix from last year. He has signed a two-year contract with Province I believe.
16 Jul 2010, 09:24 am
@Beast(Beast)-4: He is apparently going to study law at Maties – so sadly might well be in the white and blue hoops soon….
I am glad for Neil Jordaan. He is a very classy player. Paul Dobson wrote this lovely article on him on 365….
William Small-Smith, captain of South African schools, is a centre with obvious talent and he wants to carry on playing – a player to nurture.
He is big enough (1,84m tall, 84kg) and fast enough (10,8 for 100m) to be a big three-quarter. Add nature’s gifts to skill and an intuitive understanding of rugby football and you certainly have a prospect, and he has been a prospect from the beginning.
William Thomas Small-Smith was born in Johannesburg on 31 March 1992. The name sounds very English but in fact they are an Afrikaans-speaking family that used to be plain Smith. William’s grandfather’s nickname was Small. He had a business in Bloemfontein called Small Smith Motors. Cheques were often made out to him as Small Smith and had to be changed and so in 1971 he changed his surname to Small-Smith.
William was born in Johannesburg but they are a Free State family and enthusiastic Free State supporters. He started playing in Grade Two at his primary school – Fairland Primary School in Johannesburg where a classmate and teammate was Marais Schmidt. At Craven Week this year William was the captain of the Free State side, Marais of the Golden Lions for whom he played flyhalf. Both are in the South African High Performance squad.
The family still lives in Johannesburg where father is a lawyer, but in Grade Eight William headed for the great Grey College in Bloemfontein where boys dream of playing for the First XV. He is now in Grade 12, the head boy of the famous school and the captain of the rugby side.
He is not new to captaincy. He captained the Golden Lions Under-13 team when at Fairland and has captained his teams at Grey from the start. Last year he captained the Free State Academy Week side. That year a South African Academy team was chosen that went to the Craven Week. He was the vice-captain. At the end of the Craven Week this year he was chosen as the captain of South African Schools.
Craven Week was good for William, especially the last match against Western Province. The two teams had met in the prestigious last match in 2009 when Western Province had won.
William says: “It was a most enjoyable game to win. Nobody gave us a chance.”
Free State won 42-21 in an outstanding performance against a strong Western Province side. The backline was outstanding, especially the inside backs, all from Grey – Johan Goosen at flyhalf, Paul Jordaan at inside centre and William at outside centre.
The SA School team was chosen by the South African Schools selectors. The national selectors then chose a South African High Performance team to play against England Under-18, France Under-18 and a Namibia XV – William and Marais are in that team. Playing in this team will mean that the Grey players will miss their match against Pretoria Boys High. The third match is on Friday week and Grey College play Grey High in Port Elizabeth the next day, a match which William would like to play. “If the coaches want us to play, we’d play.”
The last match Grey play this season is against Paul Roos, always a big game and their last match for Grey. Last year there was upset when Grey and Paul Roos were without players to play for the High Performance team. William hopes that this will not happen this year.
William, whose studies are going really well despite the demands rugby makes, hopes to head for Stellenbosch next year but not to the university.
He has been contracted for two years at Paul Treu’s Sevens academy which shares facilities with the Western Province Academy. For players there is the allure of Sevens at the Olympic Games in 2016. Two others from this year’s SA Schools side who have the same contract are Craig Barry and Tshotsho Mbovane, both of Paul Roos, which means that they will in all probability meet when Grey and Paul Roos meet later this season. They met at Craven week when, late in the match, William and Tshotsho clashed heads and William ended with a broken nose.
When they met again at the end of last week, William walked up to Tshotsho asked him how he was and with a laugh said: “You broke my nose. I’m going to get you back.”
Joining in Paul Treu’s Sevens set-up does not mean the end of 15-man rugby. The Sevens season is from late in the year to the end of May the following year. The Under-19 competitions start in July. Craig Barry and Tshotsho Mbovane are contracted to Western Province for Under-19. William is also looking to do that but for which province has not been finalised.
Nor is the Sevens choice forever. Ian Small-Smith, William’s father says: “William is taking a gap academic year in 2011 and wants to do a law degree at either Stellenbosch or UCT. My eldest daughter is a third year medical student at UCT and we have a place close by; so UCT will probably be his university of choice.”
Those who know William will tell you that he is a mature young man who looks too laid-back for the aggressive world of rugby football but is a thinker about the game – and excellent on the outside break in the manner of Jaque Fourie.
Clearly William is a great talent – great enough to take him a long way in the game and in life – all things being equal.
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