Marcel Coetzee, the standout Maritzburg College outside centre with over 50 1st XV caps left his high school after the conclusion of the school rugby season to take up a rugby contract that now has him based at the Sharks Academy in Durban.
It’s not as bad as it would seem. Coetzee, a former KwaZulu-Natal under-18 Craven Week player of 2013 was meant to leave South Africa for Germany as a permanent arrangement before the Sharks came up with an eleventh hour offer which persuaded him to stay.
Nevertheless the thought of any true Red, Black and White leaving College prematurely is still hard to fathom. Coetzee will in all likelihood now write his matric exams at a local Durban school and not at College. The onus will probably fall on College to acknowledge him as an honorary old boy of sorts.
One thing that can’t be overlooked is there is tremendous pressure on under-19 schoolboys who want to make a career out of rugby. The lost year means that time is against them and as a result the after school rugby offers made to them limited.
This move by Coetzee has extenuating circumstances attached but it may break new ground for promising under-19 school players. With it being a major disadvantage for under-19’s to still be at school while their peers are literally training and playing as full-time professionals, the blow will definitely be lessened if these schoolboys are afforded the opportunity to join a rugby academy /institute for the latter part of the school year and in so doing make an alternative arrangement to complete and then write matric exams at a school in the vicinity of the rugby union with which the youngster has signed.
It’s a far cry from the traditional schooling approach that so many of us are accustomed to but it goes hand-in-hand with the increasing influence that professional rugby is having on reshaping the school system as we know it.
@Gungets Tuft: sensitive much
no need to dig for KES skeletons – just read Killing Kebble
@Roger: Let me humour you … and not dig around for any KES skeletons … because I don’t find that sort of thing fun. Digging around at the foundations of another institution for amusement …. well ….
He is a College man. Most of the matrics nowadays don’t attend classes after matric trials start anyway. If you are a school worth anything then the syllabus is completed by then and kids can study where they like.
He will almost certainly attend final assembly and the couple of traditions that go along with that.
Happy?
@Roger: I recall a few years ago young Ludz was induced as a Queens College old boy along with his classmates a few months before final exams. I wonder at what point other schools recognise their students as being old boys. But definitely in this case the player’s achievements at school can only be linked to one school.
saw this fella play at Saints week and against KES. Very impressive player.
Gungets – I’m curious – is he now a College former 1st XV centre or does he fall into the “ex College/Gary Porritt” category