Dewaldt Duvenage: Spotlight's glow on a staunch pro

Calm, reliable and relatively undemonstrative on the pitch, scrumhalf Dewaldt Duvenage - set to captain hosts Benetton in the Rainbow Cup final against the Bulls at the weekend - was seldom a superstar figure in the days, under Allister Coetzee’s coaching tutelage, when the Stormers were a “nearly” team of Super Rugby.

They went through several seasons of ending highly placed in the then still-majestic competition ... and importantly drawing crowds of 40 000-plus quite commonly to keep the bean-counters happy.

Duvenage was an efficient, often low-error conduit between a strong, industrious pack and the back division, even if a relatively conservative, defence-orientated formula was a key feature of the era at Newlands.