Sergeal needs to bring on the Brent Russellness

Not too much enthusiasm is expected to come Kings Super Rugby campaign this season but they do have one of the brightest most exciting young prospects on their books and they intend to use him. Grey High and SA Schools 2012 wing Sergeal Petersen has been selected to start for the Kings in their first ever Super Rugby match against the Western Force on Saturday 23 February. The youngster Super Rugby player of all times was the Force’s former star James o’Connor at 17 years 288 days so that record is not under threat but at 18 years and 206 days, Peterson is still pretty much a baby in a competition in which the average age of the local Saffa squad players is still close to 26.

It’s an outstanding achievement for Peterson and justifies him taking the risk to sign for a franchise with a bit of an uncertain future beyond this year’s Super Rugby competition. Had he joined a bigger South African team with more depth, this kind of opportunity so early on in his career would not have been possible. He would have had to pay his dues in some way or another and follow a pecking order before qualifying to play in the Southern Hemisphere’s premier competition. Not that there is not compo for starting places at the Kings and obviously Sergeal does not select himself. Others with far more experience like Kings head coach Alan Solomons make that choice and one has to assume that the proper assessments have been done by these experts and that Petersen is in fact at a development point that allows him to at least cope with the speed and intensity of rugby at this very high professional level.

In most cases academies and rugby institutions form the vital link between school and senior rugby. With more players in South Africa seemingly being readied for senior at an earlier age, one can see the growing move towards improving player skills and conditioning while they are still at school. This is transforming schoolboy rugby at a very fast rate and the overlaps between school and pro rugby are increasingly being noticed all over the country. In this regard Petersen’s readiness for the big times is a tribute to the work done at Grey High School in Port Elizabeth.

Often fast tracked teenagers both locally and abroad do go on to have very prosperous careers, justifying the decision made to throw them into the deep end early. There have however also a few occasions when it didn’t work out. Wandile Mjekevu is a good example of a teenager that former Lions coach Dick Muir should a lot of faith in when he promoted the youngster to Super Rugby starter a few years ago. Back then you might have expected Mjekevu to be a Bok by 2013 but today as a fully fit under-22 player he plies his trade at club level without a union contract. The bottomline is although the hard work and incentive to get to the top ended relatively quickly for young Peterson in relation to others his age, he is now presented with a brand new challenge of proving his worth, keeping his learning curve on the up and staying focused on both short and longer term goals for himself.

Whether he is mentally ready for senior rugby remains to be seen but in terms of physical maturity, he was an early developer and looks the part. However at just a little over 1.70m there is every chance that he will be the shortest player on the park in every game he plays in. Even Gio Aplon who stands at 1.75m is noticeably taller than Sergeal.  The modern day wing has to cope with aerial defensive threats all the time and on occasions these amount to one-on-one contests to pluck the ball out of the sky. Players with high-ball skills close to those of All Black Cory Jane will be licking their lips at the prospect of taking on short Peterson in the air. He will be targeted and tested here and in other aspects of his ground and kicking defensive game.

With his size restriction, Peterson would do well to model his game on that of pocket rocket Brent Russell or even former Welsh and Lions superstar Shane Williams. For attack Sergeal has awesome speed, good balance and wonderful footwork. Introducing explosiveness and working on his skills of anticipation to exploit defensive weaknesses, building his strength on his feet for withstanding collisions and perfecting the art using chip and other cute kicks to get past organised defences could see him go very far perhaps all the way to the top. Everyone loves a flashy player and he certainly has all the ingredients to be just that.

Southern Kings: 15 SP Marais, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Andries Strauss, 11 Marcello Sampson, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Luke Watson (captain), 7 Wimpie van der Walt, 6 Cornell du Preez, 5 Steven Sykes, 4 David Bulbring, 3 Kevin Buys, 2 Bandise Maku, 1 Schalk Ferreira.
Replacements: 16 Edgar Marutlulle, 17 Jaco Engels, 18 Daniel Adongo, 19 Jacques Engelbrecht , 20 Johan Herbst, 21 George Whitehead, 22 Hadleigh Parkes.