Baby Bok flyhalf Robert du Preez will play for Maties in this year’s Varsity Cup competition, having been loaned to the former champions by the Sharks, where he holds a junior contract.
Du Preez, whose younger twin brothers Daniel and Jean-Luc have also recently joined the Sharks, looks set to play off the bench for Stellenbosch University in their opening Varsity Cup clash of the season, on Monday night. He’s likely to come up against another former Sharks junior pivot in Gavin Hauptfleisch, who is playing flyhalf for NMMU this season.
Du Preez will return to the Sharks on completion of the Varsity Cup tournament and will provide further flyhalf depth to the Vodacom Cup and Super Rugby squads. In a rather ironic twist, his father, former Bok scrumhalf Robert du Preez Senior, has recently taken over the coaching rains at NWU Pukke, one of Maties’ staunchest foes in the Varsity Cup.
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Doesn’t he have to be a Maties student to play for the team? 😕
@vanmartin (Comment 1) : Nope, such is the farce that is Varsity Cup. Only a few have to be actual students and even then the term student is vaguely defined
@vanmartin (Comment 1) :
I think there are new rules in place that only start next season.
You have to be a full time student in order to participate. So there will be no more cases of player doing short courses and such in order to play for the Uni.
@vanmartin (Comment 1) : I believe that they have tightened up the eligibility rules (and the enforcement of them) significantly this year but 3 players in the 23 are still allowed to not be students at the university.
I understand that qualification as an eligible student is also being monitored. Wits have just had to remove 6 players from their squad ahead of the opening round as they did not meet eligibility criteria.
About time IMO as it was beginning to become a farce!
yes, agree…. they need to work out what the goal of this tournament really is and then ensure that their eligibility rules fit that goal.
To be honest, though, the whole idea that almost-professional rugby players could actually do anything more than pay lip-service to studying, in this day and age, is a bit farcical.
Also read somewhere that all players must be students this year…..
To me if they are going to call if Varsity Cup then every single player in the match day 23 should be a bona fide full time registered student of the University. Part time students should not qualify as that is when things get abused and it becomes a farce. So let it be a student competition and rewarding guys for following academic careers as well as rugby. If they are not going to enforce rules like that then rather call the competition something else.
The competition nearly ended in farce in 2013 when some sides threatened to withdraw near the end in protest at the reprimand that eventual winners and repeat offenders, Tuks, received as punishment for fielding 5 ineligible players.
Tuks, along with NMMU and Shimlas had also been reprimanded in 2012 for the same offence.
It’s a pity that this competition has been abused as IMO it has far more appeal than Vodacom Cup.
@steve (Comment 8) : With that kind of money and weak or no reprecussions for not abiding by the rules the competition opens itself up to being a joke.
why is the Vodaocm Cup so shit?
@robdylan (Comment 10) : Becaue the Sharks don’t dominate it 😈
@robdylan (Comment 10) : Its a nothing competition. The Currie Cup 1st Division should rather be played at that time. We would then have students playing Varsity Cup, good old club players playing in the Community Cup and then the contracted players playing CC 1st Division with the Premier players playing Super rugby. It would also then give the CC Prem Division more of a spotlight later in the year.
@SheldonK (Comment 12) : I favour the idea of a Super Rugby under 23 competition.
@robdylan (Comment 13) : Rob is say a Super rugby u21 or Reserve competiton so that those games act as curtain raisers fro the main game. Biggest issue would be a Sponsor though and you know how well those guys at SANZAR negotiate. But yeh i feel the Vodacom Cup is a waste and nobody besides players parents watch it.
@robdylan (Comment 10) : There is nothing wrong with the rugby played at Vodacom Cup level and conceptually it provides an important stepping stone for pro players between U21 and super Rugby. Unfortunately it simply has no spectator appeal. The same can be said for the U19 and U21 Currie Cup. All are generally watched by a handful of family and friends.
Varsity Cup attracts far bigger crowds and I have long thought that if we could start with a clean slate Varsity Cup could have been structured to play the role that College football does to the NFL. Perhaps supplemented by a short U20 interprovincial competition and a 2nd team competition for the older pro players in the Currie Cup.
@robdylan (Comment 13) : I doubt the Aussies would manage to fill those teams.
What a crock of shyte.
Varsity Cup is a piss up for students who get the free tshirt and hardly watch the rugby.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 18) : you’ve just described any sport ever targeted at students in the history of the world ever.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 18) : And that`s exactly how it should be!
Those were the days . . .
@robdylan (Comment 19) : @Original Pierre (Comment 20) : 😀 And that is exactly why the thought of a contracted player should travel 1600ks to represent a team he has nothing to do with is such a farce. Him being there aint going to make the beer taste any better.
And in other news : – the French are pasting the English. I like this a lot but am getting seriously worried about the psyche of the Island nation after the humiliation that those uncouth Aussies have subjected them to.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 22) : quite a pasting it turned out to be in the end…. 🙄
@robdylan (Comment 23) : It was a pasting when it was written. Frenchies went to sleep and ended up winning when they shouldnt have.
@steve (Comment 15) : Well said Steve (also comment 4 &8). There is a strong move to get Varsity Cup back to being a proper student comp. the whole original idea was to provide an ADDITIONAL comp to Vodacom cup to promote the game and unearth more talent especially for those who were unable to make the Vodacom Cup teams. There are several new criteria to ensure only bone fide students compete. One will be that only second year and onwards students will qualify. They will still allow the 3 non students for a while though.
The only problem with the American College football model in RSA is that there are a significant number of potential top rugby players who are not university material.
@Mentor (Comment 25) : wouldn’t stop those guys being admitted to universities in the US, though 🙂
Exactly – so if we have a genuine Varsity comp then there is also a place for the Vodacom Cup type comp.
@robdylan (Comment 26) : True – although the NCAA does try and maintain the appearance of compliance with measures like minimum grade point average and progress toward a degree to police eligibility. For example, the recently imposed “nine-credit rule,” which requires football players to take at least 12 credits in the fall term and pass at least nine of them (they previously only had to pass six). Athletes who don’t comply are suspended from the first four games of the following season.
I’m a big fan of the College system (warts and all) as a means of developing aspirant pros for the NFL. The football is great and it enjoys massive support. If memory serves only one of the 10 biggest football stadiums in the US is home to an NFL side (Cowboys)- the rest are all College stadiums.
@steve (Comment 28) : Just checked those stadium capacities – make that 3 out of the top 20 are NFL sides with the other 17 Colleges and all between 82000 and 110000 capacity.
Off Topic …
Clearance Khumalo … what a name for a rugby player LOL
Look i know most of the guys playing Varsity Cup arent actually students but surely if a guy has played Currie Cup rugby- our premier domestic competition, that should at least make him ineligible. I know there rules for guys having played Super Rugby but come on there are Currie Cup players playing. What a joke.