Tank Lanning
As editor of the Cape Town Tens magazine this year, I got to write a small piece on a few of the teams participating in the event held in February … with one of the featured teams being the “Medies Rebels” – a team made up of a bunch of medical students from Tygerberg.
And as it turns out, they have had quite a year …
They went on to win the plate division of the Heavy Beer league at the Tens, and then as the “Hippokrates” they took the Medical Faculty’s Intervarsity game against UCT, and last Friday, became the Steinhoff Koshuisrugby Champions of Maties last by lifting the sought after Sauer Cup.
With the Boks not having the best of years, much discussion around the makeup of Super Rugby, crowds dwindling at Currie Cup matches, it is good to know that the amateur side of the game is still flourishing … Especially in Stellenbosch.
These guys play rugby for the love it, and for the pure enjoyment of playing together as a team. I am told it is quite tricky for men to get into medicine these days, so they have a relatively small amount of players to choose from. The ratio of women to men on campus is 85% to 15%. Over and above that, it is nigh on impossible for these guys to have full practice given the hospital hours they have to put in.
Good on these guys for uniting a campus of nearly 3000 people by winning the Saueer League last Friday.
I like these kinds of stories …
Keen on seeing what they do at CT Tens this year.
One thing I will say, and it is from years ago so not sure it is still relevant, is that they historically did have much older players to choose from in the Koshuis league. Where the bulk of students in the mainstream koshuis’ where under the age of 21, the medical students had an experience and size advantage given the nature of the courses they studied.
This is not to take anything away from their achievements, but something to consider.