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03 February 2020 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Varsity Cup
William Eybers read more
Centre William Eybers is the new captain of the Shimlas.

With an experienced squad at its disposal, the Shimla team is approaching the 2020 Varsity Cup with confidence – despite a very difficult first assignment.

The 13th version of the student rugby competition starts on Monday (3 February), with the University of the Free State team travelling to Stellenbosch to face the champions of the previous two years, Maties.

The Shimlas retained 19 players from last year’s team. This is compared to the previous two campaigns where they had little experience and a bunch of very young players. Head coach Hendro Scholtz can call upon ten players who have played in this competition before and who know what it is all about.
Even more important is that the ten senior men are playing in key positions, such as the hooker (Hanno Snyman), eighth man (Mihlali Peter and Bertie de Bod), scrumhalf (Rewan Kruger), and fullback (Ruan Henning). Snyman will participate in his fourth Varsity Cup.

The Shimlas have a new leader in centre William Eybers in 2020. He was named joint best backline player for 2019 at last year’s Shimla Rugby Club prize-giving ceremony.
The Shimlas won four of their eight matches in 2019 to book in spot in the semi-finals against Maties.

Monday’s encounter starts at 19:15 in the Danie Craven Stadium. The match will be broadcast live on SuperSport. The remaining Shimla fixtures are: 10 February against UWC (home), 17 February against NWU (away), 24 February against Tuks (away), 2 March against Ixias (home), 9 March against UJ (home), 16 March against Ikeys (away), 30 March against Wits (home).

News Archive

Study on school violence shows the secondary school environment compels learners to be armed
2015-01-26

The secondary school environment apparently compels learners to come to school armed. This is according to a study done by Dr Lynette Jacobs, a lecturer at the School of Education Studies at the University of the Free State.

In her study, Dr Jacobs found that learners from more affluent schools carry noticeably more weapons than learners in less affluent schools. Learners in the lower grades of secondary schools also use and carry more weapons than learners in the higher grades.

Dr Jacobs says while many reasons for school violence can be noted, such as to forcibly take the victims money and food, racial differences, religious differences, as well as the immigrant status of one of the parties involved, these were reasons indicated by less than 10% of the participants in the study.

“There is no single explanation for the threat of violence at schools and most acts of school violence appear to happen randomly, often out of instant retaliation.”

For the study, Dr Jacobs did surveys at schools across three provinces in South Africa.

“Although it varies in levels of seriousness, incidences of physical violence and verbal cruelty consistently occur at South Africans schools. I found that learners are furthermore regularly mocked, insulted, cursed and humiliated by peers.”

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