Westville Old Boys raise funds for rugby player’s bone marrow surgery

THE rugby season may have been put on hold by the coronavirus pandemic, but the Westville Old Boys’ Rugby Club (WOB) is finding a way to make a difference in the rugby community by helping a young rugby player who needs bone marrow surgery for leukaemia.

The 21-year-old Morne Van Rensburg was playing at the Sharks Academy until late 2019 before he was diagnosed with leukaemia.

Morne’s older brother, Ruan, who plays rugby for Westville Old Boys, is a 100 per cent match for bone marrow, but his brother is also in need of medication that will cost R400 000 as it is being sourced from the United States.

ALSO READ: Westville resident walks 80km to raise funds

“Once we posted that picture of Morne and asked for help to raise that money, the coach of WOB contacted me straight away and said the WOB family is going help and they organised a run for Morne,” said Morne’s brother, Ruan Van Rensburg.

“That really went well and my family and I are so thankful for their support. I’ve only joined the club this year and they really made me feel so welcome,” said Ruan.

Westville Old Boys’ coach, Rob Scott, and a number of his players have taken to social media to do some fitness challenges that are being used to fund-raise for Morne.”

A few of the guys started off by doing pushups and donating R5 for each one and it’s moved on to people running marathons in their back garden and donating money per kilometre,” said Rob who was the first to run a marathon for the cause and completed 42.2 kilometres in his efforts to help Morne.

“The support has been great so far and as a club, my estimations tell me we’ve raised close to R200 000 and I spoke to Ruan (Morne’s brother) who says they’ve raised more than R300 000,” said Scott.

ALSO READ: Westville’s Herveline shares her great adventures

Scott’s efforts were matched by Matthew Everitt doing a 100km indoor cycle and Kyle Butler completing a 21km run.

Kelvin Adam, Wesley Singleton, Grant Anger and Jason Koen ran 42km marathons as well as Gav Scott and Casey Wishart running as many kilometres in an eight-hour non-stop period, as mentioned in WOB’s newsletter.

WOB’s 1st XV outside centre, Jordan Aylward, commended the efforts of his teammates, “I’ve set myself a R10 per kilometre target for my run. The WOB boys have made a huge effort and we’ve managed to raise a lot of money between us players and it’s all for a good cause.”

WOB forwards, Sky Tshabalala, Wanda Gqamane and Jonathan De Broize also commended their club for it’s efforts to help Morne.

Sky: It’s a great initiative, spearheaded by our coach, Rob Scott. He felt really strong about this and Morne’s brother, Ruan, is a new player at the club and although he’s been injured, he’s always been at practise and has come to the two games we’ve played. He’s managed to fit in well to the side and we didn’t hesitate to help him out. Ruan’s only been at the club for a few months but it speaks highly to the magnitude of WOB to help him out like this, we’re always there for each other on and off the field.

Wanda: Morne’s story has quickly spread through the rugby community, with Coach Rob Scott setting the bar high with an astounding 42km run in isolation around his yard. Other Westville Old Boys members followed suit. A good number of WOB players took on various challenges, from Cycling 100km Hiking 50 plus kms, Push up Challenges, and a “GoGetFunding” website, all aimed towards raising funds towards Morne’s bone marrow operation. The challenges certainly have done their job in raising a large amount of money.

Jonathon: We come together as a community to help Morne with his fight against Leukaemia, push up challenges took place to raise funds until the coach decided to raise the bar and start the marathon for Morne, which was shortly followed by a number of players, One player, Jordyn Nicholas, even went as far as a 80 Km marathon in order to raise funds on his behalf. Morne is in the battle of his life for his life, he is definitely not alone, the rugby community and even others out there are all helping him through these tough times, we hope the funds are met in order for Morne to get the treatment he is needing from overseas and that he recovers through this battle.

Help Morne’s cause by donating on this site

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