URC derbies spiced with school rivalries
Time was when the Trans Jukskei derby was all about the highveld schools, but the Lions and Bulls squads of 2024 have been assembled from all four corners of South Africa.
One school that churns out first class rugby players is Paarl Boys High. There may be as many as four of its former pupils in the Lions team for the match at Loftus this Saturday: Quan and Francke Horn, Mannie Rass and Ruan Venter.
Meanwhile, one of the hottest prospects in South African rugby, Cameron Hanekom, will represent the school on the side of the Bulls. Though born a year apart, Hanekom and Quan Horn played together for Paarl Boys High in 2019 and both went on to represent South Africa at Under 20 level.
Hanekom is from Somerset West, but Wales coach Warren Gatland is more interested in the fact that the youngster has a Welsh grandmother. Bulls coach Jake White was taken by surprise when he was told during the build up to the Bulls' match in Cardiff last month.
The issue may disappear quickly, however, since Hanekom is already being touted as a replacement for the now retired Duane Vermeulen in the Springbok squad.
No such issues accompany Horn's rise to the top. He hails from De Aar in the Northern Cape and moved from De Aar High School when the scouts from Paarl Boys High saw his prodigious talent.
Horn can play anywhere in the back line and is tough as teak, claiming the URC Iron man award last season. Horn played all 18 regular season matches in 2022/23, playing 1 428 minutes in all for the Lions.
In the other SA derby this weekend, the Sharks host the Stormers at Kings Park. It's always an emotional trip for Lions centre, Marius Louw, who moved to Durban in 2014 after completing high school at Grey College.
Louw was a hard tackling blindside flank at school and captained the Grey 1st XV in his matric year. But at the Sharks Academy he was turned into a centre, one good enough to play over 100 games in all competitions for the Sharks.
He moved north to the Lions in 2022, due in no small part to the arrival at the Shark Tank of Francois Venter. As Louw was beginning his rugby journey at Grey, Venter was ending his. Now 32, Venter was signed for the Sharks as part of the franchise's continuing quest to find a replacement for Andre Esterhuizen, the World Cup winning Springbok centre who moved to Harlequins in 2020.
It's been a long and winding road to the Shark Tank for a man capped seven times by South Africa. After school he played four seasons for the Bulls, before returning to Bloemfontein to captain the Cheetahs. Signing for the Worcester Warriors, he played in England for four years before the club was forced to close down in 2022.
Worcester's loss has been the Sharks gain and Venter will hope that he can 'school' Louw, a fellow Grey boy, in the finer arts of centre play on Saturday.
