Cape Town - Western Province have had to explain to a couple of confused folk that new attack coach Dawie Snyman is, in fact, Dawie Snyman jnr and not the former Springbok fullback who played 10 Tests between 1972 and 1979.
There had been one or two puzzled supporters, apparently, but that was all cleared up on Tuesday when Snyman addressed the media at the Western Province High Performance Centre in Bellville.
Snyman did, however, get into coaching through working with his uncle.
“I started coaching in 2001 at Paul Roos,” said Snyman.
“I coached at Paul Roos until 2010, so that’s nine years, and then I started at Western Province with the Under-21s and then the following year with the Vodacom Cup side.”
This year Snyman takes another step up as he forms part of coach John Dobson’s team.
“I think one of my focus points as a coach has always been to develop individual players so I’ll spend a lot of time working on individual skills and tweaking skills that they guys have already got,” said Snyman.
“A skill is not something you’re born with, you have to keep working at it and fine-tuning it. It will hopefully strengthen our attack if we have strong individuals making good decisions that they can execute under high pressure.”
Snyman added that there were a number of teams in the competition this year with the potential to be dangerous.
“I think it’s going to be a very well competed Currie Cup. You’ve got the Sharks and the Bulls on the backlash from Super Rugby and then you’ve got the Cheetahs with a new coach that did well in the Varsity Cup,” said Snyman.
“I think there’s a lot of energy in all the squads with changes and new coaching set-ups... we’ll have to be on top of our game.
“The Lions are probably the most settled squad in terms of players and coaching staff. They understand how they want to play, they understand each other and some of the other squads still have to do a bit of work. Definitely the Lions are a big threat.
“Even the team that qualifies for the Currie Cup will be tough to play against because they’ve been playing five, six, seven weeks of rugby now.”
Western Province open their Currie Cup campaign with a trip to whoever that qualifier is on August 7.