Archive for category: News

AMERICAN RUGBY ACADEMY MEETS THE WESTERN PROVINCE RUGBY ACADEMY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Recently UXI Sport welcomed its first (of many to come) USA rugby national exchange students. Tucker Trickey (scrumhalf) and Jake Stone (flank) officially joined the Western Province Rugby Academy family – all the way from San Diego, United States of America.

Hailing from the Californian city, Tucker and Jake are exceptionally talented players from the San Diego Legion Academy. The San Diego Legion is an American professional rugby union that contributes to the development of players of the American national team, which was founded in 2017, and competes in Major League Rugby. The San Diego Legion professional squad is home to many South African players, such as Cecil Afrika, Dean Muir, Bjorn Basson, Tiaan Loots, Carlo de Nysschen and Joe Pietersen (of whom Captained the squad in 2019).

Rugby Academies in America and in South Africa, play a key role as training centres for the development of players and coaches for the professional rugby sport industry. Taking hands with a rugby country such as South Africa, a 3 times world cup winner, assists with the growth and development of this sport in the United States.

Such as with SA Rugby, USA Rugby also engages in National Development Programs which make use of a High-Performance Pathway initiative, one of them being the San Diego Legion Academy – an American rugby academy where Tucker (22) and Jake (20) hail from. The San Diego Legion Academy and the Western Province Rugby Academy came together to provide once in a lifetime OPPORTUNITIES for these two talented players – the ultimate South African Rugby Experience!

Based in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, Tucker and Jake’s month-long high performance rugby experience has been an incredible experience for both. Not only did they participate in the UXI High- Performance Rugby programme, but also represented the Hamilton’s u/20 team in the Super A Club League of the Western Province Rugby Football Union.

The highlight of this stay included a match against the WP Stormers U20 squad, one that tested the Academy players development progress against some of the best SA Rugby U/20 players in South Africa.

The UXI Rugby Institutes offers international and domestic players the unique experience to travel South African, see the beautiful and cultured country, in all its diversity! From Table Mountain and the Winelands in the Cape to the Kruger National Park and Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga. The players study Rugby under super minds of Coaches, such as Ricardo Loubscher at the Cheetahs Institute of Excellence in Free State, to Brendell Brandt at the Griquas Rugby Institute in Kimberley. The rugby opportunities and travel experience are endless!

UXI Sport is able to arrange various international tour opportunities to South Africa, for both men and women rugby players, who want to experience playing rugby at a high level.

An experience for both the South Africans and the American players, as they learnt so much from one another both on and off the field. Friends were made for LIFE and bridges built across so many borders!

The UXI Rugby Institutes will offer the American GED certificate from 2022. An accredited private South African high school education provider, ESCA, has partnered with UXI on this initiative and this will allow for players to transition to American clubs or colleges for play opportunity exchange programs. The American GED allows access into various colleges in America.

UXI Rugby institutes SA, are passionate about exit strategies, and closing the gap in global rugby for all its players in its high-performance programs. The American Dream is a dream for many young talented South African rugby players! UXI Rugby Institutes will also be reaching out to other high level Academies in the US that has a shared vision to identify and develop players and coaches, such as the Eagle Impact Rugby Academy!

A huge word of thanks goes to the San Diego Legion Academy staff, Anton Moolman (UXI International Marketing Director), and the WPRA team for making this exchange programme a reality for Tucker and Jake. We look forward to welcoming another group of USA players to their journey to Stellenbosch, South Africa soon.

The first time Bolla set foot on the WPRA UXI Rugby Institute, I met a man whose smile went from his face to my heart.

A legend capped as Springbok in the history of South African Rugby ,over 80 times, and one who represented the proud WP jersey in iconic years, when crowds streamed to Newlands and camped outside the stadium for hours to see their heroes in action. Those were the days when dreams were real, and the sons from the people of the Cape, played bare foot in the dirt roads and fields of the Cape communities, They had one dream only, and that was to wear the blue and white striped jersey one day.

The days where there were no lucrative contracts and insurances. They played for the PRIDE of the jersey and loyalty to the Disa!

That spirit, that heart, are all still very evident and present in the man known as “The Rock”, who became a precious member of the WPRA coaching team in Stellenbosch at the beginning of 2021. One that few 17/18 year old players know, and some coaches in elite circles labelled, as too “old school” for the modern game! But UXI Sport believe that our youth, the “modern players of the game”- our new “ generation Z” needs these qualities, that he represents, instilled BACK into the value systems of players that enters the UXI Rugby institute rugby development program and system. Values and attributes that have been lost over the past decades but have become Future Fit skills to survive in a Y2K era.

That quality that “Inspires greatness”, that does not matter where you come from, but where you are going. And this is exactly what underpins the world-class UXI Rugby Program. We witnessed Bolla transform diverse players with diverse backgrounds and experience levels in only 5 months, to performance levels that humbled us! Not only on the field but for LIFE!

Bolla “speaks” the language of the people of our Western Cape in a way few coaches can, transferring skill, passion and pride, breaking through generation barriers. Bolla ignites HOPE, Bolla inspires greatness, years after he hung up his boots.

How proud we are of this Legend, part of the UXI Sport Dream team, leaving a mark in the lives of many aspirant and development players every day, and now returning to assist the professional coaching teams at WP.

This goes to prove how South African rugby needs their legends for more reasons than one!

UXI Sport in support of the Legends of Rugby, whose voices should never be silenced, for they represent too many lessons in the game of rugby and LIFE to bury!

Inspiring Greatness, Through Sport to Life

Nineteen-year-old flanker, Niel Venter, has found himself in the optimal position to make his dreams turn into realities – from the Institute model within a year, into the professional Toyota Cheetahs’ den!

Niel, who is an extremely talented young rugby player, who was not offered a semi-professional/professional contract or a bursary after school, is pursuing a dedicated path to help make his rugby dreams come true. He nevertheless believed in his dreams and his talent, and this led to his parents registering him into the self-funded Rugby Institute at the Cheetahs, the “Cheetahs Institute of Excellence”! Here, he was exposed to the same level of high-performance training and development as a contracted or semi-contracted player, exposed to the same coaches and high performance standards.

This also led Neil to the Under 20 pro-team training squad in 2020 already. All the way from the rugby posts of HJS pitches; the story of Niel Venter offers INSPIRATION and ignite HOPE and opportunities to many young aspirant rugby boys.

The reality of the current South African sporting economy is that it has been further financially crippled by Covid 19 – the youth needs to create their own opportunities through development platforms such as the one that the UXI Sport Rugby Institutes offer, closely aligned to the Union professional pathways.

The Cheetahs Institute of Excellence and the UXI Rugby Institutes are self-funded models – it offer players the opportunity to INVEST into their talent and future in a platform that creates an ultimate athletic development opportunity. It is not only investing into a two or more years sporting career; it is an investment into the opportunity to make a dream turn into a reality, an investment into the significant adaptations that an athlete must endure in their sport to reach an ultimate goal. It is an investment into the qualities and values that are learnt that reflects into daily life: accountability, adaptability, ownership, sacrifice and toughness. It’s investing in the opportunity and the environment which cultivates and inspires GREATNESS across all facets of the sport to life- An opportunity pursued by Neil Venter and one that will give him the RETURN OF INVESTMENT in years to come!

UXI SPORT  ∙  PLAYWIZE : ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTNERSHIP

Cape Town, South Africa; 13 April 2021:

UXI Sport has officially partnered with PlayWize, a new sports app which is launching for Rugby Union on May 3rd. PlayWize allows us to showcase all of our talented athletes, on their global sporting marketplace.

UXI Sport’s unique SPORTS MANAGEMENT PLATFORM ensures that the data and information for every student player in our system is being stored in a professional and world-class format to ensure an international shopwindow is created for each player. This shopwindow displays every student athlete to Professional clubs, Colleges and Universities from all over the world. Not only can Athletes find sporting opportunities, but they can also find educational ones.

“We believe each Athlete, whether they are professional or not, should get the most out of their time playing sport” said Gary Boddington, CEO of PlayWize. “South Africa, and UXi, has such an immense pool of talent, and with PlayWize, this talent can be seen all over the world.”

You can join this platform today by heading to www.playwize.io and registering your interest.

For Media Enquiries:

UXI SPORT

Tayla van Heerden

[email protected]

PLAYWIZE

Ben Clark

[email protected]