Rugby club to start training

There seems to be a silver lining appearing behind the dark cloud that has hung over sports in 2020.

Brakpan Rugby Club is optimistic that their teams will get to play next year.

The club is to start training soon. Their junior teams will have their first non-contact training session on Monday, while the seniors will practice from October.

“We will be following all Covid-19 protocol,” said club chairperson Harry Nieuwenhuis.

The chairperson said they have received direction from the Valke and Bulls unions.

“The training will be non-contact and we’ll be focusing on fitness,” he said.

“We are ready for this and the stadium is also ready. We have taken the necessary precautions.”

Nieuwenhuis is glad Brakpan can start training as they have had “several requests” from parents to have juniors training again.

The 2021 rugby season is expected to start in February with both the league season and the Gold Cup, which will be played once a month.

Read: Brakpan Rugby Club hopes for a better 2021

While the juniors seem to be eager to get back to the Bosman Stadium, there may be a small concern over what state of mind some of the seniors may be in.

“A lot of guys have struggled during this Covid-19 pandemic. Guys have lost jobs and businesses because of the lockdown,” said Nieuwenhuis.

“This pandemic has lasted a lot longer than we expected.”

While the players were given training programmes when the lockdown started, it will be interesting to see how fit they will be when they get to the training ground.

“We know they followed the training schedules over the first two months but we won’t know how much they followed them after that,” said the chairperson.

“We will have to pick up the fitness from scratch.”

The lockdown has impacted the economy in a major way and many businesses have been struggling as a result.

Nieuwenhuis is hoping most of their sponsors will still be able to work with them going forward.

“Businesses are in different landscapes,” he said.

“We have our smaller sponsor who may struggle and our more medium-term sponsors who could be doing a bit better. We will have to start opening communication once again to see what we can do. Hopefully some of the sponsors will come back. Others may want to revisit their budgets.”

While there is some uncertainty over what the club’s financial situation is like, Nieuwenhuis insists this will not impact on Brakpan’s celebrations as the club will be 100 years old in 2021.

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Contact the newsroom by emailing: Thelma Koorts  (editor) brakpanherald@caxton.co.za

or Stacy Slatter (news editor) stacys@caxton.co.za

 or Miné Fourie (journalist) minev@caxton.co.za

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