Ken Borland

Assupol Tuks coach Pierre de Bruyn was a satisfied man yesterday evening after his team beat NMMU George by seven wickets to seal their place in today’s Momentum National Club Championships final at SuperSport Park.

The victory left two-time defending champions Tuks unbeaten and at the top of Section Two, meaning they will take on the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Madibaz, the students from the Port Elizabeth campus, who came through Section One with a similar record, in today’s final.

“We set ourselves the tremendously high goal going in of achieving a hat-trick of titles and we said we had to go through the first five days unbeaten to do that.

“We are unbeaten, which makes it 17 games in a row at club champs, and now there’s the big one to go tomorrow,” De Bruyn told The Pretoria News yesterday.

“We probably had the easier pool, but there were areas in which we were tested and I was happy to see how we responded.”

Tuks lost the toss yesterday against NMMU George and had to bowl first, and this time leg-spinner Tertius Gouws was the man to shine as he took four for 27 in 10 excellent overs to limit the South-Western Districts champions to 171.

Neil Hornbuckle (36), Tyron Walsh (36) and Hendrik Kotze (33) provided islands of resistance, but no-one else reached double figures as the George students were bowled out in 45.2 overs.

Paceman Gerhard Linde claimed an impressive three for 23 in 8.2 overs, but Graeme van Buuren (8-1-27-0), Ruben Claasen (7-1-14-1) and Johan Wessels (5-0-18-1) were also effective.

Wessels then also starred with the bat as he safely steered Tuks to their target in just the 35^th over with a swift 69.

Captain Heinrich Klaasen applied the finishing touches with 53 not out and he hit the winning runs that put Tuks into their third successive final, and a repeat of last year’s title decider against the Port Elizabeth students.

The NMMU Madibaz outfit is a potent one, with their spin bowlers – Simon Harmer and Brad and Josh Dolley – a real threat.

Opening batsman David White is one of the most exciting young players in the country, while his partner Ed Moore is once again in fine form at this tournament.

The University of Pretoria students are going to be under increased pressure today, but then again they came through a tough situation on Saturday in their crunch game against Maties.

Chasing 207, they had crashed to 107 for five, but Sean Dickson anchored the innings with a determined, match-winning 74 and there were important contributions too from Tian Koekemoer (29) and Sean Nowak (19*), who had earlier been the best bowler with three for 20 in 10 overs.

“We were tested the whole game against Maties, but we’ve trained those situations, like chasing 20 off 20, and we stood up and really believed we could do it,” De Bruyn said.

Results

Yesterday: Section One – University of Free State Kovsies 307-5 (Jacobus Dreyer 120, Dirk Bruwer 49 not out) Crusaders 246 (Michael Alexander 70, Robbie Clift 68, Jason Biddulph 40; Leonard Killeen 4-61) University of Free State Kovsies won by 61 runs. University of Jhb 73 (Brad Dolley 5-11) NMMU PE Madibaz 75-0 NMMU PE Madibaz won by 10 wickets. NWU Pukke 370-7 (Grant Mokoena 105, Righardt Frenz 81, Wihan Lubbe 57; Gerhardt Abrahams 4-51) West End 274-6 (Xander Pitchers 62, Roche Rossouw 47, Gerhardt Abrahams 76) NWU Pukke won by 96 runs. Section Two – NMMU George 171 (Tertius Gouws 4-27) Tuks 173-3 (Johan Wessels 69, Heinrich Klaasen 53 not out) Tuks won by 7 wickets. Kempton Park 67 (Dewald Botha 5-10) Maties 70-3 Maties won by 7 wickets. United CC 112 (Romano Esau 53) Cape Town CC 113-4 Cape Town CC won by 6 wickets.

Saturday: Section One – Crusaders 218-9 University of Jhb 203 (Umar Asad 57 not out, Harry van Straaten 42, Neels Bergh 41; Jared van Heerden 4-47) Crusaders won by 15 runs. West End 139 (Gihahn Cloete 40 not out; Brad Dolley 4-35) NMMU PE Madibaz 141-4 (Lloyd Brown 51 not out) NMMU PE Madibaz won by 6 wickets. NWU Pukke 332-7 (Ludwig Roos 103, Grant Mokoena 82, Righardt Frenz 74) University of Free State Kovsies 243 (PJ Jansen 101; Bjorn Fortuin 4-56) NWU Pukke won by 89 runs. Section Two – Maties 206-9 (Dewald Botha 58) Tuks 207-7 (Sean Dickson 74) Tuks won by 3 wickets. United CC 182 (Romano Esau 64, Marco Marais 53; Lance Roelfse 5-47, Bronwell Goeda 4-35) NMMU George 183-6 (Tyron Walsh 68 not out) NMMU George won by 4 wickets. Kempton Park 179-9. Cape Town CC 162 (Marc de Beer 40; Jurie Snyman 4-33) Kempton Park won by 17 runs.

Triumphant Assupol Tukkies coach Pierre de Bruyn believes the inaugural Red Bull Campus Cricket South Africa Finals have provided “a defining moment” for amateur cricket in the country.

“This tournament has been really refreshing for amateur cricket, it’s exciting and something for young cricketers to really look forward to. I believe this is a defining moment in amateur cricket because we’ve started to question the standard of club cricket, but varsity cricket can now open more avenues.

“It’s exciting and very necessary, an awesome event for young cricketers and an extraordinary experience for them,” De Bruyn said after his team had wrapped up a 3-0 series whitewash over the Steinhoff Maties at the University of Pretoria.

Maties secured a moral victory in the last game as they put Tukkies under pressure before a late comeback with the ball by the national club champions secured victory, and captain Emile Kriek said his team had been a bit overawed by the occasion.

“It’s an amazing event, an awesome concept and the atmosphere was amazing too. It’s what university cricket needs and we need to get it on TV. I’m lucky to have played first-class cricket and some white-ball cricket, but not many of our guys have and it was all a bit much for them in the first game. Losing that then made it very hard to get momentum in a best-of-three, but in the third game we just had nobody to finish off.

“Our okes had their heads in the clouds a bit, you’ve got to keep doing the basics and Tukkies did the basics a lot better than us, especially their death bowling and individual decision-making. They’re a well-trained and well-drilled team,” Kriek said.

The Maties captain said his team had particularly struggled to score runs up front.

“The starts we had – in the first six overs we’d lose three wickets – were a problem. Obviously we’re disappointed, but the tournament has been a big positive for us. Hopefully we will come back and do well in this competition because you have not seen the best of us,” were his parting words.

De Bruyn said his team had been “ruthless and clinical”.

“From the start we said we wanted to dominate this event and use home ground advantage and we were ruthless and clinical. I’m extremely proud of how the guys conducted themselves, we controlled the tournament and achieved our goals,” De Bruyn said.

The former Titans, Dolphins and Norfolk all-rounder said his sights are now set on achieving similar results at the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals in England in July.

“We’ve showed we mean business and we’re going to go to England with purpose. We don’t know what to expect in terms of the opposition, but I played in the UK for 10 seasons, so I know how to prepare and play in those conditions,” De Bruyn said.

University Sport South Africa cricket chairman Riaan Osman said his organisation were delighted to endorse Red Bull Campus Cricket.

“It’s a brilliant innovation for USSA cricket and the student cricket family. We’ve been working for quite some time on a different platform for our student cricketers and hopefully this will be the catalyst for something like that, something new,” Osman said.

No one ever doubted during his playing days that Pierre de Bruyn was, as they would have put it on the East Rand, “a tough oke”.

Through 15 years of professional cricket for Easterns, Northerns, the Titans and the Dolphins, De Bruyn was famous for being a real scrapper, someone who made the absolute most of his talents.

A first-class record of 4637 runs at an average of 37, with a highest score of 202, and 108 wickets at an average of 29 only tells half the story because he was an even greater competitor in the limited-overs formats, and yet De Bruyn is happy to say “I wasn’t talented at all”.

“I managed to string together 15 years as a professional cricketer through complete hard work. I always tried to be one step ahead of the guy next to me through focus, discipline and enormous work ethic. I really wanted the tough situation,” he says.

De Bruyn retired in 2010, having left his beloved Titans to spend two seasons with the Dolphins, and is now a Level III coach. Having discovered how to make the most of his own talent, it is pleasing that the all-rounder is now teaching youngsters how to do the same.

The 36-year-old is the technical director and head coach at the University of Pretoria, a top-class outfit that is dominating South African club cricket.

“From what I’ve experienced as a player, I can teach the youngsters how to start and sustain a professional career, both of which are not that easy. I’m working with guys who have everything in terms of talent, but I can really teach them things in terms of mental preparation or how to build an innings. It helps having had a tough career myself,” De Bruyn says.

Going to the Tukkies nets opposite the famous High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria, it is clear the cricket club is being run like a professional outfit.

Their focus is clearly on the future – “The pace of the game is moving so fast and you need to get there before anyone else,” De Bruyn says – but they haven’t lost sight of the traditions that all great teams have.

Going into the upstairs section of their clubhouse is like a walk down memory lane as former Tukkies greats are commemorated in photographs and on an honours board – names like Mike Macaulay, Syd Burke, Alan Jordaan, Hein Raath, Tertius Bosch, Anton Ferreira, Martin van Jaarsveld, Jacques Rudolph, New Zealand Test cricketers Neil Wagner and Kruger van Wyk, AB de Villiers, Marchant de Lange, Morne and Albie Morkel, Paul Harris, Faf du Plessis, CJ de Villiers and Zimbabwe’s Kyle Jarvis.

Tukkies have also been at the forefront of the women’s game in South Africa, producing current national captain Mignon du Preez and fellow internationals Melissa Smook, Yulandi van der Merwe, Lonell de Beer, Cindy Eksteen and Charlize van der Westhuizen.

“Tradition and history is part of our culture of success. We let the guys know about the traditions of the club; we’re 95 years old now and they must never forget who represented this club,” De Bruyn says.

The most obvious feature of their training sessions is intensity: De Bruyn works groups of two or three players hard in fielding drills while former Titans coach Chris van Noordwyk is very hands-on in the nets, giving tactical advice and lots of encouragement.

“We’ve definitely got a professional approach, I want to show these high-performance cricketers what a professional environment is like so that when they get the call-up to higher honours, like Francois le Clus, Graeme van Buuren and Theunis de Bruyn have this season, they are familiar with the standards and know what to expect. They don’t have to try and find their feet for the first two weeks, which can set you back badly,” De Bruyn says.

Being able to use the services of coaches like De Bruyn, Van Noordwyk and academy coach Aldin Smith – who have all played first-class cricket – is obviously one of the keys to Tukkies’ incredible recent record: They have won the Momentum National Club Championships for the last two seasons, unbeaten, triumphed in the Universities Sports South Africa Week in December, and have won the Northerns Premier League for the last four years, with an unbeaten run of 85 games.

But the considerable support of the university’s sports office and chief sponsor Assupol also plays a major part and the facilities at Tukkies are first-class. De Bruyn says R2.5 million has been spent on upgrading the nets and they will also have full use of the state-of-the-art new CSA Centre of Excellence opening this month.

The wealth and success of the club also guarantees the steady flow of promising cricketers, many of them the recipients of bursaries.

The Tukkies 2^nd XI also play in the Northerns Premier League and are challenging for a place in the top three, showing the incredible depth present at the club.

The critics, however, say the club is greedy and causing an imbalance in the province by hogging all the best players.

“It’s tough. The elite squad is 25 players, which covers the 1^st and 2^nd XIs. We need that depth because this season alone we’ve lost seven players to the next level and we have to make sure we have replacements.

“It’s a fast-moving environment and it’s not like guys are stuck in the second team. They’re training and competing with first-class players day in and day out and the club is basically like a full-time high-performance programme for the Titans. It’s tough for the local clubs, but it’s the same in Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom and Stellenbosch. It’s a massive positive for any union to have a strong university,” De Bruyn says.

Northerns Cricket Union president John Wright agrees that the Titans benefit from the excellence of Tukkies.

“The other clubs are under the impression that Tukkies get preferential treatment, but it’s not the case. They have top facilities, full-time coaches and the support of the university and a major sponsor, so they attract the top players. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life that these factors weigh against the other clubs, but it all benefits the Titans.

“They just have to be aware of the flip-side: If they take all the good players, then they might not have anybody to play against,” Wright says.