Profile: Christopher Marinus

Having recently taken over as Gill College captain, experienced No.8 Christopher Marinus is set for a massive test against Cradock this weekend.

The hard-working loose forward has played for the Gill College first team for the last three years, but had to step up and take over the leadership role a few weeks ago when his captain was struck down by injury.

Marinus has experienced the highs and the lows of the big FNB Classic Clash, having been part of the team that lost to Cradock at home in 2011 before tasting victory away from home last year.

As a result he knows exactly what to expect this weekend when he leads his side out on home turf.

"It is going to be huge - Cradock always come hard at us and the Classic Clash is just on another level," he said.

Marinus believes that the key to success against their rivals will be to keep their focus under pressure.

"We have to try and keep calm and play our natural game. There will be plenty of supporters there so we will have to be focused if we want to beat them again," he explained.

Gill have struggled in the third term so far, losing two games ahead of the Classic Clash, but Marinus is hoping that their big forward pack will see them through against Cradock.

"Our strength is definitely our pack, we have a brilliant line-out drive which we have used to score plenty of tries this year so we want to take them on up front," he said.

The Gill College captain plans to study Megatronic Engineering at NMMU next year, and has his sights set on playing in the Varsity Cup Young Guns competition.