DHL Western Province Under-21 coach John Dobson declared himself happy with today’s final series of Under-21 trial matches in Wellington.
“This has been a very long and thorough process in order to give club players an opportunity to stake their claims for selection,” said Dobson.
“I thought today was another productive day for us in terms of it being our final round of trials and we’re now in a position to select 36 or so players ahead of our camp in Hermanus next week.”
The first of today’s three practice matches began at 13h00, with a WP U21 Amateur XV losing 55-19 to a SARU Academy B team. The WP U21 ‘B’s lost 36-0 to a SARU Academy ‘A’ team at 14h30, before the ‘main’ DHL WP U21 team went down 21-10 to the senior Boland side.
Lock Jean Kleyn and flyhalf/fullback Tim Swiel – both of whom played for an experimental DHL WP team against the Lions last weekend – turned out for the main U21 outfit.
Said Dobson: “The main team performed well and could easily have come away with the win against players much older than them. But it wasn’t about the scores today… these were trial games and I was happy with the day’s action.”
Dobson and his co-coaches are now set to cut their squad to a more manageable “36 or so” ahead of the 2013 Absa Provincial U21 competition. A slightly reduced squad will then attend a four-day camp in Hermanus next week ? starting on Wednesday, June 26 and finishing on Saturday, June 29.
The DHL WP Under-21s will then play two more warm-up matches – on July 1 and 2 – before their opening league match of the year, against the Junior Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday, July 13.