There wouldn’t have been too much surprise that Manie Libbok and Evan Roos, two heroes of the DHL Stormers’ winning Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign, walked away with the top awards at the annual Western Province Rugby Awards evening in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Flyhalf Libbok has been a revelation in the Stormers No 10 jersey since moving down from the Cell C Sharks and before that the Vodacom Bulls, both of them franchises where he wasn’t used much. This week Libbok’s decision to move to the Cape was further vindicated when, for the first time, he was invited to a Springbok training camp in Stellenbosch, where he was joined by fellow top award winner Roos.
Libbok walked away with the Stormers Player of the Year award while No 8 Roos, who was also another inspired buy on the part of the Stormers/WP as he was on the Sharks’ books at junior level even though he was schooled in the Cape, was the Stormers Players Player of the Year winner.
Of course, the reason that Roos being the players’ choice is not surprising is because that was also the way it turned out globally when all the players who participated in the 2021/2022 edition of the URC were asked to vote on who they considered to be the best player.
Given he is Junior Springbok captain and the media fuss being made about him in the Cape at present, Sacha Mngomezulu was also an expected winner of the Stormers Breakthrough Player of the Year award. Like Libbok, he has been rewarded with an invite to the Bok training camp and is clearly being regarded as a big player of the future, not only at the Stormers and WP, where he is contracted until 2025, but also nationally.
Mngomezulu made an interesting and high-pressured debut for the Stormers at the age of just 20. It was in the URC quarterfinal against Edinburgh, where he was forced to come on as a replacement very early in the game because of an injury, and it was in the less-familiar position for him at that stage of centre. He has subsequently played and starred as a starter as an inside centre for the Stormers in the URC and played a pivotal part in their one win on tour against Zebre Parma.
The awards evening, held at Kelvin Grove in Newlands, was staged now as it coincides with the end of the WP club rugby season, which runs in a different time frame to the new professional season in South Africa, which is aligned with the northern hemisphere season.
Helderberg RFC hooker Jacques van Zyl walked away with the Club Player of the Year award while the schools awards, male and female, went to Zachary Porthen of Wynberg Boys High and Logan Welmann of Macassar High School respectively.
Damian Willemse received the Brightrock Needs Matched award for the player who puts the team ahead of himself and does things people outside don’t see, while fellow Stormers stalwarts Steven Kitshoff, Frans Malherbe, Brok Harris, Deon Fourie and Juan de Jongh were all honoured for having amassed over 100 caps for the Stormers over the years.