Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell is a big supporter of Varsity Sevens which he believes will ultimately benefit the national squad.
Powell and his squad will be in Dubai for the next leg of the Sevens World Series when action gets underway in Camps Bay on November 29, but is excited about the prospect of a few rough diamonds being uncovered at Varsity Sevens.
The Blitzbokke coach told varsitysportssa.com that tournaments such as Varsity Sevens are an invaluable tool for identifying promising talent.
Players such as captain Kyle Brown, Boom Prinsloo, Jamba Ulengo and Seabelo Senatla all made their mark in the Varsity Cup before getting their chance with the Blitzbokke, and Varsity Sevens is set to provide an even clearer pathway to the national set-up.
“It is great for us to see guys performing in a Sevens set-up and a Sevens tournament, it is a better judgement on what type of Sevens player he will be than to pick on his form in fifteens.
“It is great for us because it is always difficult to identify players out of the fifteens set-up to see if they will be able to play Sevens.
“So the more we have structured competition like that where we can see guys play in a Sevens environment the better for us because we can make a better judgement,” he explained.
Powell recently got to have a close look at what the Cape universities have to offer in a series of training matches with Maties, UCT and UWC in Stellenbosch, and was impressed with what he saw.
“We always look for teams to play against at least once in every camp that we have so we can get our guys game-time, and then obviously it is a good scouting opportunity to see if there are any of those players that we can bring into our system.
“It went pretty well, I think Maties with Ian Campbell-McGeachy coaching there is always a strong side and they get better and better as they get more structure which is exactly what we want,” he said.
The national coach was particularly impressed with UWC who even managed to win one of their games and lay down a marker ahead of the tournament in Camps Bay at the end of the month.
“I think UWC are much better, they actually beat us when we played them with our least experienced squad with a lot of youngsters so it was a good eye-opener for them. It showed that if you don’t play hard every time the universities will come out and beat you.
“They also play in the local club league so they have experience in Sevens and they have a few good players there as well. One of the guys that just played against us is somebody that we will look at in the future for our academy set-up,” he revealed.
Stefan de Villiers and Josh Bassingthwaighte – who starred in the victorious Maties team last year – were called up to train with the Blitzbokke squad at the end of last year, and Powell said their progress will be monitored with interest.
“Stefan de Villiers and Josh Bassingthwaighte have been in our set-up in the past, guys like that who we have in our database we will keep on having a look at, so we will definitely be keen to see how they go at the Varsity Sevens,” he said.
He added that as Blitzbokke coach he always has his eye out for promising talent, especially from Sevens tournaments like Varsity Sevens.
“We are always looking out for talented youngsters, especially for the academy. It will only be the really good players that go straight from the Varsity Cup into the Springbok Sevens senior set-up.
“The new guys will spend a few months at the academy first to pick up the basic principles and if they do well they will move up into the senior squad,” he explained.
