Draghoender worry for Maties
The FNB Maties could be without in-form inside centre Dabeon Draghoender for a considerable period of time, after he picked up a knee injury during Monday night’s 43-10 Varsity Cup win over UJ in Johannesburg.
The hard-running Draghoender has been in superb touch this season – notching up four tries in the defending champions’ 68-20 opening-day win over NMMU, before collecting a brace against TUT the following week.
His injury will come as a big blow for the back-to-back champs; the Men from Stellenbosch having also been without first-choice pivot Hayden Groepes against UJ.
“Dabeon’s knee is not looking good at this stage,” admitted Maties head coach Chean Roux in conversation with varsitycup.co.za. “We’ll know more later in the week, but I’m not too optimistic at the moment.”
In some good news, however; Roux could have his squad captain, fit-again loose forward Cameron Peverett, back in action next week as the Maties get set to host the previously unbeaten Shimlas (kick-off 7.30pm).
“I still have to decide what I’m going to do with Cameron,” admitted Roux.
“I’m happy with my two flankers, Sam Mabombo and Jonathan Adendorf, from the UJ game – but it depends on whether Paul Treu would like to pull Jonathan back up into his SA Sevens squad.
“I see they won the Plate Final in Las Vegas, so perhaps Paul will stick with his current mix, but if Jonathan moves up that would obviously create a gap for Cameron to return.”
Looking back at this past Monday’s four-tries-to-one victory in a wet and slippery Johannesburg, Roux praised his troops for sticking to the gameplan – something he will no doubt be hoping for against the Kovsies.
“Playing against UJ in Johannesburg was always going to be a test, and then the weather went a bit foul…
“But I was very happy with our wet-weather game and it was just one of those nights when the guys stuck to the gameplan – as a coach I cannot ask for more,” he added.
