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2007 Legends Award Evening
14 awards were handed out at the South African Rugby Legends Association annual awards evening held at the Elangeni Hotel to applaud all of the colleagues and players for their achievements during the 2007 season.
The last twelve months have been a huge development for the South African Rugby Legends Association (SARLA) with a number of programmes, tours and clinics being held around the country and beyond the borders. The new programme that was devised and launched in the calendar year which is gearing up for the 2010 World Cup is Leaving a Legacy. It joins the all ready successful Street Kids Crime Prevention, Adopt - A - School and the Iqhawe Programmes.
14 awards were handed out during the evening. They were:
SARLA Person of the year:
Malcolm Colman - Marketing: South African Rugby Assn
Most tries throughout the season:
Deon Kayser is the former Eastern Province, Sharks and Springbok rugby player and averages two tries per game since retirement.
Best backline player:
Braam van Straaten. It was a very close call for this one between van Straaten and Robbie Fleck. Van Straaten squeezed in with a drop-kick which saved the semi-final in Bermuda.
Best forward:
Piet Joubert can play any position. "He drives like a forward, runs like a back and even drop-kicks like Stransky!" said John Allan when presenting the award.
Most dedicated legend:
Andile Nyembezi
Dedication and Commitment to SARLA Award:
Kim Jackson
President's Award:
Gary Teichmann
Dynamic Contributions Award:
John Allan and Ian MacIntosh
Social Responsibility award:
Gavin Varejes
Iqhawe Achievements Awards:
Best Forward - Pelican Mabena
Best Back - Ndumiso Cele
Best Team Player - Wandile Sibiya
The Achievers Award - Siyanda Nyawose
The South African Rugby Legends Association has been up and running for five years and has been making an impact on the amateur level of the game. Over 50 clinics have been held coaching 35,000 children. They have llaunched a series of rugby, sport and social development programmes which are sustainable within the sporting communities. These programmes are for the benefit of all sports. The most recent programme addition is the Rugby for Africa which has taken development one step further and is being launched this year.
Rugby for Africa is an initiative that the South African Rugby Legends Association will be using in their coaching clinics. Previously the Legends had a strong driving force coaching hundreds of children from all walks of life, parting with their experience on the game of rugby. Now the Legends want to broaden their influence. The programme will be run with Legends coaches training the coaches; professional refs will coach the school refs; Ian McIntosh will coach the children and professional medics will coach the school medics.
The guest speaker for the evening was motivational speaker, Gayton McKenzie, former prisoner at Grootvlei Prison who exposed the corruption of prison authorities in South African Prisons in 2002. He has been awarded Motivational Speaker for the whole of Africa for the last two years running.
McKenzie mesmerised everyone in the room with his words of encouragement and emphasised, "Everything in life you do, do to your full steam. You as an individual can make a difference in this country. We are a great country with a handful of fools holding us back but we all have to believe that there is nothing we can't do! Everyone can make a difference. The eLan Rugby Legends can say that they have made a difference, they are giving hope to all of the children that they coach and give a chance to in this great game."
John Allan in closing urged, "We want to live in the best country in the world with the best sporting teams in the world and that is what we at SARLA are doing, starting from the grass roots up."
Amongst the rugby legends was guest star and legend in her own right, double gold medal Olympic swimmer, Penny Heyns was also at the glitzy awards evening. She along with all of the rugby players applauded the work that John Allan was doing. Gary Teichman ended off the awards speeches congratuling Allan by saying, "Thank you to John for his perseverance that makes us all get involved!"