Cape Town - Dawie Theron, coach of the South African Under-20 side, is satisfied with the significant amount of work his training squad put in during their camp in Stellenbosch, which concluded on Wednesday.
Theron and his assistants,
Nazeem Adams and Brendan Venter, worked with 48 of the country’s best U20
players at Stellenbosch University’s Sports Performance Institute. The camp
started on 27 November.
“Our intention with this camp was firstly to
create a team culture which included the process of making the players understand
what our blue print will be for the IRB Junior World Championships,” said
Theron.
“The coaches and the rest of management team
spent large amounts of time with players individually, from rugby business to
medical statuses and personal player development.
“The 48 players left Stellenbosch equipped with
our plan of action for 2012 and in January, when we get together for our next
camp with two warm-up matches included in the programme, we’ll be testing their
grasp of how we want to play.
“It was a valuable 11 days
with the players, who got to work with Nazeem and Brendan for the first time.
We really worked extremely hard and I can only applaud the effort made by the
players and the management. We also put a lot of effort into position specific
training and individual skills,” he said.
“It was great to see the
enthusiasm by all involved and I’m even more excited now for the next couple of
months, until the Junior World Champs kick off here in the Western Cape in
June.”
Theron and the national
selectors, Peter Jooste and Ian McIntosh, also had an opportunity to see what
the players are capable of away from match situations. They will select a
smaller squad early next year for the next training camp, also to be held in
Stellenbosch.
“We will be playing two
pre-season friendlies, against Ikeys and Maties, on January 21 and 27
respectively. Our camp will start on January 15 and conclude with the second
friendly match,” explained Theron.
“After that we will use the
Vodacom Cup and various Varsity Cup competitions to refine our squad even more,
before an Argentinean side arrives here for two friendlies in April, also in
Stellenbosch. By then we should have everything in place to focus on the Junior
World Champs.”