Youth Gold for SA
South Africa sent an Under-18 Sevens team to the Second African Youth Games in Gaberone, Botswana, and they won the gold medal with consummate ease.
Down to play five matches over the two days, they beat Kenya 60-0 in the Final to win gold.
They were down to play four matches but Cote d'Ivoire did not pitch up for the first match. They then beat Kenya 31-0 and Madagascar 52-0 to get into the semifinal where they beat Namibia 44-0 to go through to the impressive Final performance. In all they scored 187 points to nil.
The team was: The squad is: Eduan Keyter (Affies), PJ Toerein (Garsfontein), Tshepiso Mahasha (Ben Vorster), Luigy van Jaarsveld (Marlow), Jaco Coetzee (Glenwood), Morné Joubert (Glenwood), Marco Janse van Vuuren (Transvalia), Herschel Jantjies (Paul Roos), Edwill van der Merwe (Paul Roos), Edrich Venter (Paul Roos), Grant Williams (Paarl Gim), Ivan Kunz (Tygerberg).
The coach was Gavin Beresford and the manager Marius Schoeman who is the manager of the SARU Sevens Academy,
Schoeman said after the Final: "I didn't expect to beat Kenya by this margin.
"We used yesterday's pool game against Kenya as something of a warm-up for today's Final. And we clicked really well. I always wanted our defence to be the key and a look at the scoreboard proves that."
Going forward and Schoeman was full of hope. "There are some very good guys in this team and we'll probably be signing three or four of these up for the Sevens Academy in Stellenbosch. Most of them are signed to their various unions in any case but we'll have to work around that."
