South Africans 2009 squads announced

South Africa have announced their full squad lists for the two competitions that they will play in 2009. They have named an eight man squad to travel to Australia to compete in the Quadrangular Tournament in April and a sixteen man squad to come to the UK in July to take on the UK mens and ladies squads.

The Quadrangular team will contain four members who made the trip to Australia in 2007. For the ladies section the sisters Celicia and Dawnay Jacobs will return and for the men the captain Gavin Cocker will revisit Australia along with Charl du Plessis, who normally plays number one for the South Africa men. Dawnay Jacobs was the youngest player at the 2007 World Cup, being just 15 years old at the time, with her sister Celica was just two years older at 17. They are joined in the ladies section by Lee-Ann van Wyk and Cursti Windt. The other two men are Freddie Kriel and
Jan-Albert Steenkamp.

 
This could be the South African polocrosse logo...

All four of the ladies will make the trip to the UK in July as well and they are also joined by Che and Tracey Taylor, Kerren Windt and Karin Cocker. There are also four reserves and they are Hazel Schoemen, Emma Hall, Tarryn Stevenson and Elri v.d. Merwe.

Or this could be....

For the men, Charl du Plessis is only listed as a reserve for the summer trip, a fact that will might be a relief to the UK as he was once described as theplayer with the best hand eye co ordination in the world. Five men, therefore, join the squad and they are Gordon Shaw (another world cup veteran), Gys Boonzaaier, Steven Kane, Retief Steenkamp and Andrew Heynes, who was based in the UK for a number of years. The other three reserves, alongside Charl, are Eugene du Preez, George Schabot and Squack Whaley.

The UK have yet to name their team for the summer test matches sreies but it would seem logical that it will include all their quadrangular team and then probably some of the young players who defeated the US open team in October 2008.