Craven Week to choose top 200

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:05

Leonidas and his 200 Spartans held the whole Persian army at bay till they were betrayed. Not for that reason, Craven Week is to choose as many as 200 players from its teams at Craven Week and the Grant Khomo Week for special development.

At Craven Week in Pretoria there are 20 teams, 18 of them South African. The Grant Khomo  Week had 18 teams, 17 South African. 200 is a large proportion of the 770 players at those two weeks.

The players  will be introduced to special training and assessment regimes as part of the SARU’s High Performance programme to prepare them for national representation in  age-grade teams and eventually to senior rugby.

All the players will be assisted in developing their physical conditioning, nutrition and rugby-playing skills.

Players selected to the Under-16 or Under- squads will be placed on a two-year programme. A separate programme for Under-21 players will run for one year.

SA Rugby has also introduced a scouting system in the fourteen provinces as a safety net to ensure that talented players who may have missed selection to the Youth Weeks may also be taken up into provincial elite squads introduced for the first time last year.

Players in the elite squads will undergo two assessments per year. The results will be recorded on a national performance database to enable analysts to monitor elite squad players and determine statistical trends over time. The database will also give selectors of national teams access to reliable data on which to base their decisions.