The other day it was Philip Snyman, the BlitzBoks legend to Uganda, to give technical support to the Uganda 7s coaching team in preparing the team.
Philip was accompanied by a friend, Johan Van Wyk, who was thought to be a Strength & Conditioning specialist coach, also a South African. The above two are not the only brothers from South Africa to have helped the rugby Cranes team.
There was Chester Mornay Williams (RIP) on a full contract with the local rugby body and sat for months on the Rugby Cranes technical bench coaching and guiding the teams.
Williams, who in his days played as a winger for the South Africa national rugby union team (Springboks) from 1993 to 2000, most notably for the team that won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which was hosted in South Africa as the only non-white player on the team, strolled into the country in 2006 for a short stint seeing Cranes’ game improve tremendously. The truth, Coach Williams transformed the national rugby side and led them to a famous victory over Ivory Coast.
Since the dead man’s strong performance with the national team, Uganda fell very obsessed for the South African coaches. In the same attempt, therefore, to improve the performance of the national rugby team, in 2007 URU acquired yet another South African coach David Dobella, before again bringing in Coach Johannes Beukes who arrived after Dobella.
Beukes, a former Springbok player, Cheetahs, arrived in the country for his and URU’s initial 10- day period to oversee Cranes and would later travel to South Africa and return later to manage the national team over a two year period.
He was replacing a Ugandan and former Rugby Cranes skipper Peter Magoona, who opted not to renew his contract. Beukes’ appointment as Rugby Cranes coach was a result of the development partnership that the union signed with Cheetahs Rugby Club.
Going forward, many South African tacticians have in between visited Uganda rugby on matters of rugby technical bits as Cheetahs’ coach Naka Drotske also visited Uganda plus Free State referee society chairperson Albert Mocke.
Beukes was tasked to building a strong Rugby Cranes team that would later compete through the qualifiers for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Counting, Beukes became the third South African coach to manage the Rugby Cranes.
As you read this, and in the interest of our ardent readers we can reveal that it’s a South African rugby touch as Uganda Rugby Union has again travelled to the South of the continent for a Rugby Cranes 15s aside team handler.
Anthony Heugh Donald is already here in Uganda from the South African and has joined the Rugby Cranes 15s technical team and straight to the camp.
We can say he played some rugby in South Africa but how far or deep did he play rugby so much that he can handle the team that is preparing for world Show piece qualifier in Africa.
According to URU the former rugger on Monday evening started on his duty to fine tune every technical detail of the team and make ready the boys ahead of the upcoming Rugby World Cup African qualifiers that will be in France.
So the question one would ask is, has Uganda registered some really good rugby playing form because of these South African brothers?
Again due to the overwhelmingly poor obsession for South Africa rugby coaches, the URU recently entered into a partnership with South Africa particularly the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport (SAS) to provide the team with specialized coaching expertise as well as options to have the team camp at SAS.
For the good of the sport of rugby and particularly the national 15s aside team we shall shift the discussion to the Rugby Africa Cup 2022.
Rugby Africa Cup 2022;
Uganda is preparing for The Rugby Africa Cup 2022, the last qualifying round for Rugby World Cup 2023, which will bring together the 8 best African teams for a sensational tournament hosted by France 2023.
With a long tradition of hosting Rugby Africa tournaments and activities, France and Rugby Africa are already in a close collaboration process which will provide the 8 competing teams with an exceptional tournament and ideal hosting conditions to concentrate on a single goal, win the final match and qualify directly for Rugby World Cup 2023 which will also take place in France.
The winner will meet hosts France, New Zealand, Italy and the Americas 1 qualifier in Pool A. The knockout tournament will take place in the first half of July with four colorful quarter-finals that were determined at the end of the group stage of the Rugby Africa Cup 2021.
Thus, the four group winners Namibia, Senegal, Uganda and Zimbabwe will meet respectively with Burkina Faso, Algeria, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire. The semi-finals will follow and the long-awaited final. Ranking matches will also be played.
The runner-up will have to make do with a place in the Final Qualification Tournament to make one final attempt to qualify for Rugby World Cup 2023.
Author Profile
- Mr. Daniels N. Tatya is an affluent Sports Writer, Commentator and Editor. His over 15 years of covering almost major sporting events makes him a revered and an authority on investigative Sports journalism in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected] +256(0)758268315
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