Ken Borland

The University of Pretoria Tuks and the hosts, the University of Johannesburg, were at the top of the log after activities ceased in the first leg of Varsity Hockey’s men’s competition with the two Gauteng universities having won all four of their games, earning 12 points.

Tuks are in first place, having been more active in terms of scoring goals, with 15 being netted by the Pretoria students, who conceded just five for a goal-difference of +10.

UJ, after starting with a bang in a 5-3 win over Maties, were embroiled in three tough games thereafter, finishing with 13 goals but conceding eight for a goal-difference of +5.

Maties and Wits will be busy trying to catch Tuks and UJ when the second and final leg of the tournament gets underway in Stellenbosch on Friday, having both won three of their four matches.

Wits are fourth with a goal-difference of +9, while Maties have far and away the best goal-difference with +18. They recovered superbly from their defeat at the hands of UJ on the opening day by shutting out Kovsies 4-0 and NMMU 8-0, before producing an outstanding 9-1 hammering of Pukke to complete their Johannesburg fixtures.

Given their performances in their last three games and the fact that they will be playing at home, Maties could well be the side to beat.

UCT and NMMU, both with three points after one win, have an outside chance of making the semi-finals, with both playing the sides below them in the standings – Kovsies and Pukke – on the first two days in Stellenbosch.

It’s going to take quite a collapse though by Wits, who were impressive through their first three games at UJ before suffering a shock defeat at the hands of UCT on the final day.

The Stellenbosch leg starts on Friday at 1.30pm and it’s a massive clash between the two Johannesburg neighbours, UJ and Wits, that gets things started.

It will have a major impact on the log with UJ either going clear at the top or Wits joining them and Tuks on 12 points.

With wonderful players such as Taylor Dart, Gareth Heyns and Brynn Cleak – all members of the Southern Gauteng team who won the senior IPT  a fortnight ago, as well as Courtney Halle, Kyle Lion-Cachet, Tyson Dlungwana, Ryan Crowe and Amkelwa Letuka, who all played for the SA U21 team that lost in the final, UJ have plenty of scope for improvement.

Maties are also a powerful outfit, however, with goalkeeper Rob McKinley, Charles Bowren, Matt de Sousa and Alex Stewart from the SA U21 team and Western Province players in Dylan Swanepoel, Shannon Boucher, James Drummond, Keenan Horne and Daniel Bell. Former SA Schools player Reece Arendse is also a penetrative forward.

The Southern Gauteng B side, Wits, missed out on a semi-final place in the men’s IPT in a shootout against the SA U21s and they have several players in the Wits University side – Joshua Casaleiro, Kamal Ramburuth-Hurt, Rusten Abrahams, Brandon James, Chad Futcher, Stuart Philip and Thabang Modise – making them a dangerous unit.

Tuks have full internationals in Richard Pautz and Grant Glutz providing them with bite up front, while SA U21 caps Nduduzo Lembethe, Khumo Mokale and Tevin Kok also shone at UJ. Michael Marki is a former junior international and was the rock of their defence.

Tuks take on Maties in a massive game on the opening day and the local favourites will then meet Wits on Saturday, before ending the round-robin stage with a local derby against UCT.

Log (goal-difference in brackets): 1 Tuks 12pts (+10); 2 UJ 12pts (+5); 3 Maties 9pts (+18); 4 Wits 9pts (+9); 5 UCT 3pts (-1); 6 NMMU 3pts (-13); 7 Kovsies 0pts (-10); 8 Pukke 0pts (-18).

http://varsitysportssa.com/maties-wits-trying-catch-top-sides-heading-stellenbosch-leg-varsity-hockey/

The minutes of the University of Pretoria cricket club AGM after the 2015/16 season will show that they lost their inspirational coach Pierre de Bruyn after six trophy-filled years, but the former Titans and Dolphins all-rounder’s departure for Leicestershire is a blow for South African cricket as a whole.

De Bruyn confirmed on Wednesday that he will be taking up a post as skills coach and second XI head coach with English county Leicestershire in the new year, therefore ending an association with the Tuks cricket team that saw them win five successive Northerns Premier League titles, three National Club Championships, three University Sports South Africa crowns, the inaugural Varsity Cup for cricket and, just last weekend, they defended their title in the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals, the world cup of student cricket.

“I cannot thank the University of Pretoria more for the foundation they have given me, they’ve played a massive role in my life in terms of my growth end education. They gave me all the tools I needed for a very successful six years, and they have moulded the person I am.

“But as a young coach, I want to go to the next level, my long-term aim is to be an international coach, and a great opportunity has come my way at Leicestershire. It’s a full-time, permanent position, so I’m moving the whole family. It’s a chance to get into the very powerful structure of county cricket and try and help Leicestershire get back on track. There’s been a lot of change there and I hope I have a massive role to play,” De Bruyn told The Citizen on Wednesday.

One of South Africa’s most promising coaches and a father of two daughters, De Bruyn will work under elite performance director Andrew McDonald, the former Australia, Delhi Daredevils, Bangalore Royal Challengers and Leicestershire all-rounder, and another South African expat, Nic Pothas, is the new academy director.

“It’s a new page for me and if you look at the IPL, or the likes of Graham Ford at Surrey, Dave Nosworthy at Somerset and all the Aussies, having coaches from all over the world is where cricket has gone. I think I’ve shown I can produce and develop players, and I hope to bring discipline and structure to my work at Leicestershire. After six years of great memories, I just want to make sure I continue changing young people’s lives because that’s what I’m passionate about,” De Bruyn said.

Some of the most talented young South African cricketers – Theunis de Bruyn, Aiden Markram and Graeme van Buuren – have passed through his hands at Tuks.

Posh universities talk about “reading” a subject at their academic institution so, because I have such great respect for what TuksSport  are doing, it is only fair to say that some of the most talented young men in this country are reading cricket at the University of Pretoria.

And they are doing it most successfully judging by the accolades that keep coming the way of the Tuks team so ably coached by Pierre de Bruyn, who has great assistants and backroom support. The Tuks cricket team have just landed in India to represent South Africa as the defending champions in the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals, a global competition for tertiary institutions that has seen more than 200 teams from eight countries try to qualify. It has been called the Student World Cup.

Tuks won the title in fine style in England last year, but this time they travel to India – a new challenge which De Bruyn and his players embrace. Much has been written about playing in the sub-continent, but having completed their usually thorough preparation, De Bruyn says success will come down to the usual factors.

“Although we have six new faces in the team, we have a very nice senior core which the youngsters can feed off. The guys must just express themselves, you can easily over-analyse the conditions and then it becomes overwhelming. It’s about getting the roles right, good discipline and decision-making,” De Bruyn said.

Tuks will surely rely a lot on players who have experienced those conditions before, like captain Aiden Markram, canny seamer Corbin Bosch and off-spinner Ruben Claassen, who is another rising star.

They won’t however, have the explosive batting talents of Heinrich Klaasen, who is on duty with the Titans team.

Franchises are probably going to be relying more and more on players from tertiary institutes, simply because they generally have the financial resources to develop cricketing talent, and there are some university administrators who believe their clubs deserve more than just a pat on the back for their great work. The idea of a “development fee” to be paid whenever a player signs a contract with a higher team, whether that be franchise or national, has been mooted.

While that is a worthy idea, there is always the danger of widening the gap between those who already have and the have-not clubs, of which there are so many in this country in these troubled economic times.

But Cricket South Africa are currently working on a plan to try and support and incentivise clubs, especially those community clubs which cannot rely on strong backing from the structures that exist in tertiary institutes.

The thinking is to replicate the Blue Chip Schools programme which will be announced in the coming weeks with the Blue Flag Cricket Clubs incentive scheme.

The idea, according to the general manager of CSA, Corrie van Zyl, is that clubs gaining a certain percentage on the Clubs Index – which will list desirables like a qualified coach, a constitution, strong membership contributions, maintenance of facilities – will be awarded a Blue Flag designation and receive money as an incentive.

The finer details still need to be worked out, but the money will go direct to the clubs, as opposed to the money CSA normally pours into club cricket which is given to the Affiliate body to distribute.

The clever people at CSA seem to have come up with a good scheme to help the club structures – one of the key foundations of the game – so I guess it’s fair to say they are reading cricket pretty well too.

No one would ever doubt Pierre de Bruyn when he says “discipline is a non-negotiable in this environment”, but what might surprise people is that the Assupol Tuks head coach rates flexibility as the most important ingredient in the tremendous success he has enjoyed since coming to the University of Pretoria in 2010.

“There are plenty of theories thrown out about coaching, but my philosophy, what I really believe is the number one factor to being successful as a coach, is that you have to have flexibility. Discipline is non-negotiable in this environment, but every day you’re dealing with different personalities, attitudes, levels of skill and even different goals. So you really have to understand people,” De Bruyn told The Medalist.

“You need to get on the same boat as the individual, you need to work with them and help them get to the next level, like Theunis de Bruyn and Aiden Markram have embarked on their journey. But the player needs to trust you if you’re going to go on that journey with them, which is why you must understand the individual player.”

De Bruyn hides a steely interior behind this talk of flexibility, trust and understanding. During his 15-year career as a player for Easterns, Northerns, the Titans and the Dolphins, De Bruyn was acknowledged as one of the toughest competitors on the circuit, someone who made the absolute most of his talents.

“I wasn’t talented at all. But 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 said.

“Talent is not enough and I always work on the mental aspect with my players. A good, solid mentality is key to succeeding in cricket and if you don’t have good discipline – at training, on the field and at home – how can you expect to play winning cricket? I want my players to understand that without discipline, they’ll be inconsistent and unreliable players.”

There is little doubt that players like Theunis de Bruyn, who has already made a strong start to the domestic franchise season, Graeme van Buuren, Markram, Corbin Bosch and Heinrich Klaasen will enjoy successful careers thanks to the foundation that has been laid at Tuks.

“Pierre has brought 15 years of experience in first-class cricket and he’s introduced a culture where young people can really learn their game and how to be successful at higher levels. It’s a very professional environment here and that’s why our players are able to excel when they go up to first-class level,” Theunis de Bruyn says.

While stressing the importance of the individual, coach De Bruyn will never allow that to become more important than the team ethos.

“One philosophy that is clear in our team, and every team member is in the same position, is that while we will work out how to meet a player’s personal needs, that can never overtake the team goals. We’ve created a culture of success here, we’ve built something special over the last five years,” he said.

And tradition will continue to play an important role in a club that has produced such stars as 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.

“Guys have come through this system that have such character and tremendous attitudes and I really believe in that sort of tradition. We’re very fortunate to have this environment at Tuks, there are excellent services and support and we have the structures, I believe, to take on the best in the world,” De Bruyn said.

And the results bear that out.

2014 will be remembered as another phenomenal year for the Tuks cricket team. They are the world champions in the only global university cricket competition – the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals, they completed a hat-trick of titles in the Momentum National Club Championships (unbeaten through 18 games) and they have won the Northerns Premier League for the last five years.

De Bruyn, though, will be focused on ensuring his team improve even more.

“It’s a fast-moving environment and it’s tough. The players are training and competing with first-class cricketers day in and day out and the club is basically like a full-time high-performance programme for the Titans.

“If I’m one percent unprepared as a coach then it can cost a young player his dreams. I have to be very sharp as the coach and stay one step ahead otherwise it will cost the player,” De Bruyn said.

A coach with such high standards for himself will undoubtedly be inspirational for his charges and the success of the Tuks team bears this out.