Captain's profile: Steven Pieterse
Pieterse will in all probability hit a massive milestone of achieving 50 caps for his school – the Middelburg Classic Clash will see him secure cap number 44 – which is just reward for someone who has played first XV rugby for two years.
"I have been playing in the first team for the last two years and racked up a number of caps under my belt, so to lead this team is a massive honour. I aim to create unity in the team so that we are all on the same page and we all want to achieve the same things as a team.
"The way I feel that I can get the unity in the team is by me setting the example through full commitment in all facets of the sport. Our team is a young, inexperienced group of boys but everyone is hungry for victory and each of us have a huge passion for the game," Pieterse said.
The 19-year-old front row forward has played representative rugby in the 2015 Craven Week and feels that step up helped improve his game. He will need to muster up all that experience for the Classic Clash though as he knows exactly what HTS Middelburg is all about.
"It is always a closely contested match between the two Middelburg schools. We will need to dig deep and give it our all if we want to overturn the results of the recent past.
"HTS have had the upperhand on us in the past but we plan to be in their faces from kick-off this time around and hopefully it helps to ruffle their feathers a little bit," he added.
One could always look to the rocky season HS Middelburg have had to see that they may be up against it in this encounter but it is a Classic Clash and there are no favourites. So regardless of a few results not going their way, they are steadily improving and are on the way up.
Pieterse dreams of becoming a professional rugby player one day and that dream is certainly not out of his reach.
