SA Academy goes for power
A strong SA Sevens Academy squad, featuring several players with Sevens World Series experience, has been selected to participate in the forthcoming International invitational tournaments in Harare and Dubai.
The Harare tournament takes places November 29-30 and serves as the CAR (Confederation of African Rugby) qualifying tournament to determine an additional African country for the Hong Kong Sevens in March 2015.
The Dubai Invitational takes place on December 5-6 and forms part of an international Sevens festival in the United Arab Emirates, which features Round 2 of the Sevens World Series, a Women's Series event and several other junior boys and girls tournaments.
Chris Dry, Steven Hunt, WJ Strydom, Shaun Adendorff and Rosko Specman are the senior players in the Academy squad who have played in numerous World Series tournaments. The rest of the squad consists of an exciting crop of young and promising players, presently contracted to the SA Sevens Academy in Stellenbosch.
They include, among others, Vincent Maruping, the CUT Varsity Cup flanker who is the brother of former SA Schools representative Victor, as well as Stormers and Western Province wing Devon Williams, who is one of several new intakes at the Academy. Another Academy debutant is utility back Dewald Human, who made the move from the Blue Bulls.
These youngsters will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of recent Academy graduates to the Springbok Sevens team, such as Justin Geduld, Cheslin Kolbe, Kwagga Smith, Werner Kok and Seabelo Senatla, who have all been part of victorious Blitzboks teams in the recent past.
In Harare, the South Africans will cross swords with the best African selections from hosts Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, Tunisia, Nigeria and Madagascar. The twelve teams will be divided into two groups and the two top placed teams to emerge from Saturday's pool action will contest the semifinals on Sunday.
In Dubai, the Academy squad will line up against international selections from Russia, Belgium, Germany, Kenya, the Gulf region and England.
SA Sevens Academy squad: Carel du Preez, Chris Dry, Vincent Maruping, Josh Moon, Shaun Adendorff, Devon Williams, Lungelo Gosa, Sandile Ngcobo, Rosko Specman, Steven Hunt, Dewald Human.