Griqua coach plans to sharpen team on Southern Cape road trip
TAFEL Lager Griquas head off to Hartenbos tomorrow where they will have their team building effort and put in some hard practice before their second pre-season warm-up match against South Western Districts at the Van Riebeeck Stadium in Mossel Bay.
The team’s new forwards coach, Denzil Frans gave the DFA a glimpse of what lay ahead for the lads in the run-up to this weekend’s match. “The squad will be spending some time, as part of their team building efforts, having different games for the camp which include beach soccer, touchies and cricket.”
He also said that everyone was looking forward to the camp, and were very excited about it.
“I am very happy with the progress we are making,” he added. “Especially in the set piece department. We were up for a physical battle and passed with flying colors against Western Province last Saturday. However, it is an ongoing process though.
“We knew we were going to make mistakes and now we can work hard to improve in those areas. We did work hard on attack and defence during the off-season hence the good result, but we need to work harder on game management and execution of game plans.
“In general I’m a happy coach after our first win for the year.”
Looking ahead to Saturday Frans said that doing the basics right would be vital. “We are going to focus on the basics, work hard on first phase possession, try to outwork the opposition on attack as well as defence by playing a high tempo of rugby.
Tough battle
“We are also preparing for a tough,battle upfront, where we’ll have to play a very tactical game under the windy conditions, as well as trying to control the tempo of the game.”
Meanwhile, Griquas conditioning coach Neil Murphy gave his thoughts about the WP match played in Upington this past weekend. “It was a good start to the season and a nice confidence booster for the Hartenbos Tour this week and South Western Districts Game this coming Saturday, he said. “It was one of the hottest days for rugby to be played in Upington and we started off pretty well with good running rugby and we were excited to see the boys skills really shine! And come to the fore.
“The set pieces were extremely good for most of the game and yes it was always going to be a game with errors and mistakes, but it turned out be a nail-biter in the end, with us clinching the win by 40-35.
“We took a lot of positives from the match and expect to work on the mistakes for our next game. It is always great beating Western Province and are looking forward to our next game against SWD on Saturday.”
The point scorers against Western Province were – Tries: Kwhezi Mkafu (2), Eric Zana, Tythan Adams, Ederies Arendse and Godfrey Ramaboea. Conversions: Pieter Steyn de Wet (4) and Eric Zana (1).
Saturday’s match in Mossel Bay kicks off at 3.30pm.