Cornel Ferreira - HTS Daniel Pienaar Captain
A big man and a big leader!
HTS Daniel Pienaar host Brandwag on Saturday in a FNB Classic Clash. HTS Daniel Pienaar captain Cornel Ferreira is a big boy who is looking forward to a big game on Saturday. Having looked forward to the local Uitenhage derby since last season already, he is fired up for this week's FNB Classic Clash.
Cornel was born in Somerset-East and attended both Gill College Junior in the town of his birth and Laerskool Frans Conradie in Despatch. He has been at Daniel Pienaar since Grade Eight and apart from captaining the 1st XV, he is also headboy of the school and the hostel. He is enjoying the experience of leading such a large school.
Cornel has played loosehead prop his whole life. With his size, Cornel weighs 115 kilograms and stands 1.96m tall – that is entirely understandable! He is comfortable on both sides of the scrum, but like his hero Os du Randt he prefers the loosehead side. Cornel describes his strengths as his tight work, scrums and line-outs, but like Os he contributes well all over the park.
Cornel played Eastern province U13 Craven Week, but has had his hopes of making the EP Under-16 and Schools teams dashed by untimely injuries. His is into the semi-finals of the EP Craven Week trials and hopes to go the whole way in 2006. As for 2007, Cornel hopes to attend Potchestroom University Rugby Academy and at the same time study engineering.
Daniel Pienaar have a young team this year. Cornel feels that they are beginning to gel and play together better after a difficult start to the season, which included a trip to the St. John's Easter festival. At St. John's they suffered two of their three defeats thus far, but also recorded their most notable win, against Paarl Boishaai. Importantly, though, Daniel Pienaar were able to match Paul Roos, who have one of the heaviest packs in the country this year, upfront. This gave Cornel and his pack much confidence and they began to display that confidence last weekend with a convincing 30-12 win over Otto du Plessis.
Playing Brandwag in the local derby is a massive occasion in Uitenhage.
Cornel and his team are practicing hard and are hoping to match their achievement of last year with another convincing derby win.
