Res Rugby Round 3

When two unbeaten rugby teams in a competition meet, you can be sure that it will deliver a great game of rugby. Sonop faced Morula Legae in a clash that would determine the new log leaders of the res rugby league.

Morula opened the scoring with a successful penalty kick. However, from that kick onwards Sonop started to dominate by continuously driving back Morula’s defence. Both teams made use of tactical grubber kicks behind the defensive line to find space and apply pressure on the opposition. Going into halftime, the score was 3-0 in favour of Morula. During the second half Sonop once again had almost all of the possession and territory but had no points to show for it. The battle intensified with Sonop kicking deep into Morula’s corners to keep them restricted in their 22-metre territory. With five minutes left to go, Sonop finally managed to crack Morula’s phenomenal defence and dot the ball over the line for five points. The match ended 5-3 in favour of Sonop. Hats off to Sonop’s attacking commitment and Morula’s sheer brilliance preventing multiple tries with their accurate defence.

In the second match, we saw House Mopane take on House Tau. Mopane opened the scoring with a try and took a steady lead with 10-3 into halftime with Tau receiving a yellow card for foul play. After the break, Mopane scored three more tries compared to Tau’s one. To make matters worse for Tau, they received a second yellow card in the second half, resulting in more pressure on their defensive strategy. The final score was 29-10 to Mopane with an impressive five try haul for the victors.

This was another fantastic round of rugby. Round four will resume on Wednesday 19 April after the recess.

This idea of the road to the Olympics. Can you explain to me what that road looks like for the two of you?

Competitions:

T: [To] qualify at the Olympic Games you have to compete at tournaments, and you gain points for winning matches. You have to be in the top 18 in your weight in the world and as the competitions go on those point [points] go higher. That 18th spot keeps rising in points. The road to qualify to the games is do as many competitions and try [to] perform at them. It depends [on] how well you perform, how difficult your road will be.

Training:

T: You have your phases of training, but you always put 110% in your training. The training varies depending on how close you are to [a] competition. Our coach, Nikola, always says [that] if you’re not going to give 110% in your training session just rather go home. Rest. You’ll do more good resting then what you’re gonna do training and just sort of being lazy.

When your average person thinks training it is just cardio or weights or diet etc. What sort of preparation goes into this journey that an outsider does not immediately recognise?

T: Training while you’re hungry. Doing anything while you’re hungry and don’t have the nutrients to do it is very difficult. My sister, she was very recently training in a training camp in Czech Republic and that weekend she had to fight at the Latvian European Open. So, she was doing everything everyone else was doing but she was cutting weight.

D: So I was eating absolutely nothing. I was on my diet plan: nutrients cut to little, liquids cut to minimum. Everyone there is fine and healthy and not hungry and they’ve got the strength. And you’re there like ‘Okay, well we’ve gotta do it.’.

T: With that is also injury management. Training while you’re injured. There’s a lot of people that [have] very hectic injuries but they [have] a really important competition in the next two, three weeks. So [if they] can’t go for that [operation] they need for their knee, they just [have] to do the injury management. A lot of physio, a lot of strapping, a lot of rehab, icing and sort of just working through it.

Of course, now you’re focused on qualifying for the Olympics. But past that, what is something you would like to do as a judo athlete?

T: Then it’s time to give back for me. I want to develop judo especially in our less provided areas. Like, if you take PE, it’s extremely good talent that comes out of PE. It’s [because of] funding and recognition, you can’t keep the kids in the sport because there’s no incentive for them. I’d like to use what I’ve learnt in my personal career to give back and hopefully start a new generation a lot stronger.

D: We want to prove to them [young kids] that it can happen. We want to be these kids’ role models.