By Francois de Wet
A meticulous planner and organiser is the best way to describe Sanlam Boland Cavaliers team manager Grant Jantjies.
For the past five years, he, along with Cavas logistics manager Moses Fortuin, has been the one behind the scenes, ensuring their team’s every need is taken care of.
From proper-sized training and playing kits to travel and hotel bookings, and even attending to some of the players’ requirements, Jantjies has to ensure that everything is organised to the tee.
All while the Botrivier-born 42-year-old has to focus on his day job as a South African Police Service Detective at the Grabouw branch.
Talk about juggling balls, hey.
However, his background as a cop is the reason why Boland has entrusted Jantjies to take care of their professional side, as meticulous planning and probing go into apprehending criminals and solving cases as a top Detective.
Still, ensuring that he stays focused on both jobs is no mean feat, as Jantjies explains that his days begin before dawn when the Cavas prepare for game weeks. And especially now that the Cavaliers are continuing to grow into a fully-fledged professional rugby setup after qualifying for this year’s Currie Cup Premier Division.
“In the past, when we were mainly just a team based on club players, my weekly involvement was not that busy, Jantjies explains. That was when we were training for just two days a week in preparation for playing in the Currie Cup First Division.
“Now we practice on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Wednesdays being the team’s day off. Saturdays are usually game days, and when those games are played away, we typically fly out on a Thursday, if we have to play away on a Friday.
“A typical week for me starts at 5 am, where I head to Grabouw SAPS to do my day job, and after I am done there, I head to Wellington. And it sometimes takes working extra hours as a Detective to travel with the team on weekends for game days.
“To juggle all those balls is not easy, especially when you also have a wife and kids at home to tend to,” he says further.
But of loving both jobs after signing up to become a cop in 2006 and cutting his teeth as a manager at Grabouw RFC, later on, Janties says: “I stopped playing club rugby around 2008 and decided to go into administration at the club.
“I took up the role as team manager from 2008 at Grabouw, and as time went by, I got a call from Boland asking me if I would be interested in a role as manager of a Boland XV and Boland Presidents XV, and I immediately said yes.
My thinking at that stage was that I had reached a point where I was managing a team at club rugby level, and it was time to take the next step.
That move broadened my horizons and opened many doors for me at the union. I later went on to become the team manager of the Boland Elite group, before an opportunity arose to serve as the logistics manager for Zimbabwe’s SuperSport Challenge team.
In 2019, I became the team manager for Boland U20, and in the same year, I also assisted the U19 side. Jantjies then landed his current role in 2020 and has been part of a Cavaliers side that has seen many successes in the past five years.
That includes back-to-back Currie Cup First Division title wins and, most recently, being part of the team that helped Boland return to the Currie Cup Premier Division after an absence of nine years.
And of being blessed to be part of a successful period for the union, Jantjies says: “I told someone the other day, when we look back at where we started working at the union, there was just the Cavaliers logo on the jersey and the name of the kit sponsor on the jersey.
“I can tell you in those days, we struggled even to get enough Powerade drinks for all the players. To the point where, at times, we had to buy it out of our own pockets. I recall that at one time, I had to drive to Wellington at my own expense to fulfil my task as team manager. If the guys wanted Steri-Stumpie, then we would have six that all members of the team had to share between them.
“So, to see the difference from back then up until now has been massive.”
And with Boland reaching for even higher levels in the coming years, Jantjies says he wants to remain part of that journey, because playing in the Currie Cup Premier Division is just one of the goals that the team and the union have set for themselves.
As Boland spread their wings, Jantjies says he wants to spread his as well and hopefully one day get to put away the Detective badge and go into full-time team management at the Sanlam Boland Cavaliers.