The second Helderberg club rugby derby of the season is set to electrify the basin, as St George’s RFC hosts All Saints RFC in a Super League B (SLB) encounter at Gustrouw Sports Ground on Saturday (23 April).
Following the enforced Easter weekend break for most clubs in Western Province, both teams will be looking to dust off all the cobwebs and get their players to full fitness for this enticing duel. What makes this outing even more exciting is the fact that All Saints’ head coach Mirwaan Davids will come up against the team he had previously played for and coached.
Head coach of the Lulu Boys for four seasons and a dedicated player for the club for 18 years, with co-head coach Charlton Cloete, he took St George’s to SLB glory in 2017 and the top tier of WP club rugby the following year.
Davids is adamant the encounter will be “business as usual” on a personal front. “I decided to expand my horizons and move on to a different environment to better myself in my quest to become a great coach.
“There is a positive vibe and great player number improvement at All Saints at the moment, with 80 to 90 players rocking up to practices. With such a positive gees, any community club can only grow stronger, and victories will follow.”
The men from Somerset West have had relatively good starts to the 2022 season, having suffered a narrow 24-29 defeat to Belhar in their season opener and thumping Goodwood 10-28 in their second match. They will hope they can carry on this winning momentum into the match against their neighbours from Strand.
The Lulus, on the other hand, will be looking to overturn their luck after they were on the losing side in both their league matches to date – narrowly bowing the knee to Helderberg by 11-8 in their first match and 23-27 to Hands & Heart in their second match. The Strand men will hope to repeat history and clinch their first win of the season. The last two times the sides met, St George’s were victorious at Helderzicht Sports Ground on both occasions, recording a 19-33 win in a friendly outing last May and winning 17-24 in a SLB match in 2019.
Davids brushed off the hype around his new team locking horns with his former team, saying they’ll approach the match the same way they would any other. He admitted any club rugby derby in the Helderberg presents an exciting but tense prospect for the teams involved.
The Saints head coach is expecting the home side to pile on the pressure up front, so his charges will need to be on their guard for the Lulu pack. “A wounded St George’s may be a dangerous team, but it may also have the reverse effect as the pressure of having lost two matches may make them desperate and lead to mistakes,” Davids said.
“We will go to Gustrouw as the underdogs. I believe four Saints’ players – flanker Derzarn Jackson, full-back Keaton Gordon, outside centre Jeandré Lukas and winger Duwayne Raubenheimer – will have a great impact on the game.”
St George’s head coach Gareth Isaacs is relishing the opportunity of coaching against Davids, whom he coached under for two years. “We are eager to challenge ourselves. Mirwaan knows our players, but we are eager to get the upper hand,” he said.
Isaacs said his charges’ two losses have been a result of individual errors, which they hope to eradicate. “We are well prepared and have been focusing on capitalising on the good forward momentum we have had,” he said. “We have worked on being more patient in the opposition 22, so that we can turn possession and territory into points.”
Isaacs said players to look out for on Saturday are centre pairing of Dimitri Hendrikse, Fabian Filander and loose-forward Alvino Anthony.
The much awaited derby duel kicks off at 16:00 on Saturday. It is preceded by matches between the clubs’ under-20 side (13:30) and second team (14:40).
