William Small-Smith - Grey College Captain
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:15
William Small-Smith: A name worth remembering
It's Grey College's last match of the season and it is the big one - against Paul Roos at home in Bloemfontein, an FNB Classic Clash. On this emotional occasion William Small-Smith will leading his outstanding side for the last time.
If ever anybody came up through the ranks. William has done.
At each stage of his rugby career he has played representative rugby - Under-13 Craven Week for Golden Lions, Under-16 Grant Khomo Week for Free State, Under-18 Academy Week for Free State, South African Academy side which attended the Craven Week in 2009, Under-18 Craven Week for Free State, South African Schools and South African Under-18 team.
In addition he was in the SA Elite squad at Under-16 and in the SA High Performance squad at Under-18.
The SA Under-18 this year played and won three international snatches - against France Under-18, Namibian XV and against England Under-18. He enjoyed that - practising with other players, seeing how top coaches go to work. But then the best of it was winning the three matches. "You always enjoy it the most when you win a match and I must say I enjoyed the matches greatly."
William capatained every one of those representative teams, captained each year's teams at Grey and is the headboy of the great school. Clearly, he is outstanding as a player and as a leader. He will have an great impact of Saturday's match against Paul Roos.
He captained this year's highly-successful Free State side which not only played against Western Province in the main match on the last day at Craven Week but also beat them 42-21. Grey had 17 players out of 22 in the Free State side, Paul Roos seven in the Western Province side. Of those 17 Grey players, 11 will be in Saturday's starting team with another two on the bench.
Asked if he thought that that huge Craven Week victory would play a role on Saturday, William said: "I don't think it will have an influence, as we evaluate and play each match on its own merits. If one went on players on paper, lots of schools results would have been very different this year. We play the game that is in front of us on the day. All that that victory could perhaps do is to make the Paul Roos guys hungrier, jurist as last year's defeat is doing for us.
"We are hungry for the victory - not just the first team. All our teams feel that we owe Paul Roos one. Hopefully we will take the bad memories and turn them into something positive."
Last year the High Performance players on both sides were unable to play in this match. This year all are available, barring those injured.
For both sides there is the additional emotion of playing their last match for their great schools. William says: "Playing our last match in front of our home crowd is a great privilege.
"I know we always play better on our home ground with a thousand boys shouting for us. So there is a lot of emotion in the match but not so much that it will cause unnecessary pressure."
William comes from an ardent Free State and Old Grey family but he was born in Johannesburg where his father is a lawyer and where the family still lives. When he played for the Golden Lions at Craven Week he was a pupil at Fairlands Primary. He then moved into a Grey College koshuis in Grade Eight (Std Six).
William Thomas Small-Smith was born on 31 March 1992. He is just 18 and already has done so much.
Contact Us | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Advertising
