On-song Shimlas on the right track
Rugby, like so many other sports, requires self-confidence from its players in order for teams to be successful.
And if you are low on confidence, things can turn out quite badly; as FNB Shimlas discovered two weeks ago against the University of Johannesburg in a FNB Varsity Cup presented by Steinhoff International match.
Everything possible went wrong that day; passes did not stick, tackles were missed, tactical kicks went off target and kicks at goal went astray. For the record; Shimlas got hammered 44-8 in the process.
But against Tuks this past Monday, the Shimla players slowly started getting their confidence back and this was best illustrated by their star inside centre Niël Jacobs.
The Affies old boy struggled with his goal-kicking in previous Varsity Cup matches and when he missed a penalty attempt early on against Tukkies, it was his eighth miss out of 12 attempts at goal this year.
However, shortly after scoring a stunning try against the selfsame Tuks, a total turnaround in his game came about; he slotted five out of his next six kicks at goal and his general play also improved tremendously.
Jacobs’s success aside, the Kovsies pack joined the party and they were able to create front-foot ball for their dangerous backs, who revelled against the Men from Pretoria.
Up till then, the Shimlas front row had struggled in 2009. In fact, they had been under pressure in the scrums right from their very first outing against FNB NMMU, when loosehead Charles Marais was warned after just 30 minutes of play for illegal binding.
Against the Maties (in Round Three), the Shimlas coaching staff tried to surprise their opponents by bringing in ‘Vaatjie’ Koorsen on the loosehead side – despite not being named in Shimlas’ initial starting XV.
Not even this big front rower could help the Shimlas scrum, which went backwards at an alarming rate. But against the Pretoria students, Shimlas did well in this facet of play and regular tighthead prop Drew van Coller even got a few right shoulders.
According to Dougie Heymans, a master of scrummaging in his day for the Free State Cheetahs and now Shimlas’ forwards coach, they have picked players to give more support to their props.
“Willie Britz and André Tredoux are actually locks, but we’ve decided to play them on the flank to beef up our pack,” explained Heymans to varsitycup.co.za.
Another aspect that helped Shimlas was their effective cleaning at the breakdown where – once again – they had struggled before the Tuks game.
“The guys did what was expected of them, and they were more efficient to ensure us quick possession which gave us the necessary momentum,” explained Heymans.
Shimlas’ next Varsity Cup clash is against FNB UCT – who are in second place on the log – on Monday, March 9. Kick-off is at 6.45pm.
Click HERE for the Shimlas team.
By Ruan Bruwer
