From debutant to talisman
East Rand United versatile backline player Cameron Lentoor leads the top points scorers table with 127 points after nine rounds of play in the Valke Peregrine League along Vereeniging’s Hendrik Smith, who leads the league with 128 points.
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The two are head and shoulders above the rest with Smith’s teammate Arno Poley coming in at third with a total tally of 94.
Pleij van den Broek, also from Vereeniging (84) and Brakpan’s Juan Botha (75) round off the top five.
Lentoor, who made his debut for the Reiger Park outfit at the beginning of the current campaign, has quickly settled in with his new team and has never looked back.
His devastating pace has seen him help his side to their five wins thus far with a telling contribution of 14 tries in eight starts – comfortably making him United’s leading try scorer.
Lentoor played his first few games for United at scrum-half but it was when United coach Derrick Sampson moved him to left wing where he got the chance to fully demonstrate his pace.
His goal-kicking ability, which has also seen him assume the team’s goal-kicking duties, combined with his vision for space and pace to burn, makes him the lethal marksman so valuable to United.
The Eastern Cape-born player arrived at United when Merlin League-winning captain and now former United player Alvandre Maart tipped Sampson about the 21-year-old Lentoor, who plied his trade at childhood club Africans RFC in King William’s Town.
A 100m and 200m sprinter in his schooling days, Lentoor paid tribute to his mentor Maart, his parents who are based in the Eastern Cape, his hard work at training and his drive to keep on improving to the game’s highest level for his red-hot form.
Lentoor, who surprisingly chooses fly-half as his preferred position, also praised the club and its main sponsor.
“I must say, it’s my first time being involved with a club as professional as ERU. We have top-up meals before games, we have physios and I’d like to thank Phakisa Holdings for looking after me.”
Lentoor’s 127 points come from a total of 14 tries, 18 conversions and seven penalties.
United enjoys a bye this weekend before what promises to be a bruising clash with defending champion Brakpan next week. – @SabeloBoksburg
