- Asad Moos, hailing from Ottery, is one of two scrum halves in the South African under-20 rugby squad competing in the Junior World Cup at various stadiums across Cape Town and Stellenbosch.
- The tournament features 12 top nations, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and France.
- Matches will take place until mid-July.
Asad Moos from Ottery, is one of two scrum halves in the SA u-20 squad that will be contesting the Junior World Cup which kicked off on Saturday 29 June at Cape Town Stadium.
The games will continue until Friday 19 July, with the Junior Springboks opening their account with a 57 – 7 victory over Fiji.
The tournament sees the world’s 12 best nations (South African, Australia, New Zealand, France, England, Ireland, Argentina, Fiji, Italy, Wales, Georgia and Spain) competing over five match days at Cape Town Stadium, Athlone Stadium and Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.
Athlone will host pool stage matches and a selected few games will be played at Danie Crave, with Cape Town Stadium hosting key matches including the final.
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Ezekiel Ngobeni from Maties is the other scrum half.
“I am looking forward to facing different opposition and testing myself against the best in the world at age group level and I’m also looking forward to playing in front of my family and friends. The championship in Australia (from Thursday 2 until Sunday 12 May) gave us a good idea of where we are as a team but I think we will be a much better team at this Junior World Cup. We are just looking to improve in the small things that let us down in Australia. At the championship we’ve learnt that our fundamentals are very important so we will want to improve on that in the Junior World Cup. We played against the hosts, New Zealand and Argentina,” he says.
Moos is originally from Grassy Park and attended Fairview Primary and Wynberg Boys Junior and High School.
Hero
His father Munier is his childhood hero because of the way he goes about his day-to-day business. He says he taught him almost everything. “My message to younger players is to keep working hard at the small things because those are the things that could be the difference between good and great rugby players and to never give up regardless of where you come from. My father also had the most influence on my rugby career as well as all the coaches that has worked with me since I was four-years old because they always believed in me from a young age.
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“I come from a rugby family so my father and my uncles all played rugby when they were younger, they obviously played during a difficult era but they always give me tips on what I could do better. I am also looking forward to playing at DHL Stadium as I’ve never played there,” Asad says.
When he is not playing rugby he loves being outdoors and spending time with family and friends. “When travelling for rugby matches locally and globally you miss the support of your family and friends, but luckily for us there were a lot of South Africans living in Australia, so we felt at home with their support in Oz. My long term goal is to hopefully be a Springbok one day and to be a Stormers rugby player,” he says.
- Tickets are throughTicketmaster, at R35 for children up to 18 and R75 for adults.
