After finishing in a disappointing eighth place in the last edition of Varsity Sevens in 2013, NMMU Madibaz have now set themselves the target of reaching the semifinals ahead of this year’s event at Villager FC in Cape Town.
The squad will include players from both the George campus and the PE campus and head coach Jandré Blom feels that his team are on the right track to make an impact.
“Preparations have been good. We going there to play well and our goal is to reach the semifinals. After that anything can happen, such is the nature of the game,” Blom told varsitysportssa.com.
“We have seven players from the George and eight players from PE and I think it is nice that we have a team where the two campuses are combined.
“I am happy with everything, it is just that the players from George have played in four competitions already so it is just about incorporating the PE players into the team.”
Former BlitzBok star, Fabian Juries, is NMMU’s assistant coach and he will have added significantly to the side’s style of play heading into the three-day event. He will also come up against former BlitzBok captain and teammate Jonathan Mokoena, who is the coach of UJ, and Blom feels the Joburg team will be one of the sides that might cause his team some difficulty.
“UJ are coached by Jonathan and they have a couple of tricks up their sleeves and they are going to be a difficult team to beat. Tuks won the USSA Championships so they will be very difficult and so too will Kovsies.
“The Maties have Ian Campbell-McGeachy (coach) for a long time now and they have been playing in a number of tournaments so they were be a team to look out for,” said Blom.
The Madibaz will have a few of their Varsity Cup Stars at their disposal with flyer Tythan Adams, No.8 Ivan-John du Preez and utility forward Jody Reyneke all set to add some much needed pace and physicality.
They believe the days of them being pushovers are over with the talent coming out of PE and George in the last two years steadily improving the side.
“A lot of resources have been put into NMMU because in the past if you played us it was thought to be an easy game, but it not anymore. The work that has been done has really improved the side,” Blom added.
