Captain's profile: Tinus Vermeulen

Outeniqua captain Tinus Vermeulen's experience as skipper will stand his team in good stead when they face Oudtshoorn away from home on Saturday.

Vermeulen, who heads a core group of matriculants who earned their first XV stripes last year, boasts Craven Week and Academy Week experience.  

More importantly, in the context of Saturday's derby, he has invaluable leadership experience, having captained all the teams he has played for since his Under-13 days.

He will need to draw on all his experience come Saturday as Outeniqua, considered favourites, find themselves in a tricky situation.

"Being the favourites puts extra pressure on you to perform so we are not taking the favourites tag to heart," said Vermeulen.

"Struisies is always a big game, you never get an easy inter-schools game, and log positions count for little in games like this. It's my job as captain to get this message across to the team and to make sure complacency doesn't creep in."

Vermeulen's task is further compounded by the fact that Outeniqua suffered a heartbreaking 22-20 loss to Struisies when the teams last met in Oudtshoorn in 2010, a defeat that ended over a decade of Kwaggas dominance.

"We are well aware of what happened two years ago and we expect them to take inspiration from that. It's time for us to set the record straight but it's important that we keep a cool head and not let revenge consume us."

Standing 1.83 metres tall and weighing 85 kilograms, Vermeulen is equally adept at flank and eighthman.

"I played Craven Week at six but I'm comfortable to play anywhere in the back row and have gained a lot of experience at number eight this year," said Vermeulen.

He's a master at the breakdown and varies his game expertly, enabling him to contest for the ball at the tackle whilst being a link between the forwards and backs on attack.  

He will move to Stellenbosch next year to further his playing career and study mechanical engineering.