The MiWay Sevens kicks off on Friday morning and there will be an added incentive for one lucky player.
One player will win a bursary at the ETA College to study a two-year course in Sport Management or Sports Conditioning. There is also a second prize up for grabs, which will see a player doing a course in Sport Massage, courtesy of the same institution.
On Thursday morning MiWay Sevens, along with Redstar Agency and OFM visited two of the development schools, namely High School Sehunelo and High School Tsoseletso to hand over 50 pairs of brand new Puma rugby boots.
During the recent coaching clinics, it was identified that many of the youngsters from these two school do not have proper boots. Most of the boys who had boots were wearing worn-out and torn boots, and many were actually training wearing their school shoes.
It is something that many of us took for granted growing up (including myself). Seeing 50 boys who actually just want to play the game for the love of it and seeing them smiling and singing with joy is truly a heart-warming, humbling and special experience.
The two schools, who will be fielding U15 and U17 teams, will be taking to the field with renewed sense of looking the part when facing some or the more privileged schools.
The Springboks Sevens player, Philip Snyman, who won a gold medal with the recent Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro, travelled to Ireland on Tuesday to where World Rugby is informing select players of the changes coming to the HSBC Sevens World Series next season.
The former Toyota Cheetahs winger told Courant that he is delighted to hear about the MiWay Sevens and agreed that there kind of tournaments are ideal for developing the game and introducing young players to the magic of Sevens rugby.
“I’m really excited to hear about the MiWay Sevens this weekend,” said Snyman from Dublin.
“I agree that Fiji has a lot of depth and I think the reason for that is that they play from a really young age and it is their national sport.
“Globally Sevens is one of the fastest growing sports and the fact that it’s an Olympic sport now makes it even bigger.
“I think one way of growing the sport is to have more tournaments like the MiWay Sevens and to involve all age groups and many not just U18 or U15, but from a really young age like U9 and up.
“Having said that, we as South African’s are really lucky to have rugby in our blood and if we can play Sevens from a young age it will improve skills which will also be beneficial to the fifteen-man code.
“I just want to the say best of luck to all the schools playing in the MiWay Sevens and I’m really looking forward to hearing about the future stars coming out of that tournament.”
The second annual MiWay Sevens, promises to be bigger and better that before and the action gets underway on Friday afternoon at 13:00 at Sentraal High School in Bloemfontein. – MORGAN PIEK
