Wayne Stevens – Grey College captain
Player Profile
Two of South Africa’s great rugby schools meet on Saturday when Grey College of Bloemfontein play host to their traditional rivals Paul Roos Gimnasium from Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. The match is a televised FNB Classic Clash and centre Wayne Stevens captains the hosts.
Wayne Stevens was born in Bloemfontein on 17 May 1988 and has been at Grey College since pre-primary. He lives at home with his parents and is currently in Grade 12. He has two brothers, both of whom have played representative rugby. The younger of the two Stanley currently plays flank for the Free State Under-21 team. I put it to Wayne that having lived in Bloem his whole life he must be considering studying elsewhere but he is happy in his hometown and will be graduating to Free State University (Kovsies) next year. A candidate for an A-aggregate he hopes to study financial management. Wayne is multi-talented and apart from captaining the 1st XV Rugby, arguably the highest honour at Grey College and working towards his A-aggregate, he is a school prefect. He also plays cricket for the school 1st XI and represented Free State Under-17 as a batsman.
Wayne is playing in his second year in the Grey College 1st XV and would have been at his second Craven Week this year had an untimely hand injury not forced him to withdraw. Wayne represented Free State at every age group level and although he was disappointed at not to have been able to attend Craven Week this year at least he had the honour of playing in 2005 when Grey hosted the event.
Wayne plays inside centre and models his game on the great Brian O’Driscoll. Wayne admires the flair and skill of the Irishman. Wayne is relatively tall for a centre at 1.88 metres and cites defence as the best aspect of his game. Being a good cricketer and having played flyhalf for most of his junior school days he also has good ball skills and distributes very well.
Grey College always have a well-balanced team and this year is no different. As usual they have a pack that dominates the opposition and backs with lots of flair and speed. Wayne says the two best games of the season for him have been their wins away at Paarl Boishaai and Grey High school in PE. Somewhat uncharacteristically Grey College have lost two games this year, to Affies and Glenwood. The loss to Glenwood, which came just last week, being particularly surprising. Having never played at Glenwood before Wayne says his players struggled to adapt to the conditions and the referee and found themselves rattled.
Grey College do have several first choice players, including vice-captain and scrumhalf Danie Calitz, out to injury but with their enviable depth Wayne says their rhythm will not be to badly effected. Calitz sustained a severe head injury two weeks ago but has since been discharged from hospital. Although he will never again play rugby, he is recovering well at home.
Saturday’s game is a massive occasion and apart from being a traditional inter-schools derby it is the last rugby game the seven matrics in the team will play for the school. For someone like Wayne who has been at the school for more than twelve years it will be a very special game. Paul Roos are also ranked above Grey College on the FNB Classic Clashes Top 20 and Grey will be looking to knock them off their pedestal.
For more information about Grey College, click here.
