Legendary South African marksman Calvin Petersen was suitably impressed by the talent on show at the SAB League National Champs.

The tournament is currently taking place in Stellenbosch, with the semi-finals underway on Friday (12 July 2013)– both kick off at 10h00 at the Idas Valley Stadium as Western Cape take on KwaZulu Natal, while Mpumalanga will clash with Limpopo.

Former Moroka Swallows and Durban Bush Bucks striker Petersen is at the tournament as part of the Castle Lager SuperStars XI scouting and talent identification project which has been ongoing for around eight months now.

This has seen an all-star team of professionals including Neil Tovey, Phil Masinga, John Tlale, John “Shoes” Moshoeu, David Nyathi and Petersen seeking to identify the cream of the crop in terms of young players shining in the SAB Leagues across the country.

In January this year a select group spent time together in camp in Stellenbosch (at the Stellenbosch sports Academy) and the High Performance Centre in Pretoria.

Friendly matches were played against Ajax Cape Town, Vasco da Gama, University of Pretoria, Cosmos and SuperSport United, with PSL and NFD coaches there to hunt for talent.

Petersen and the rest of his team are now hoping to uncover a few additional gems at the 2013 SAB League National Championships, and he is pleased with what he has seen over the last three days.

“I’m very excited – it’s a great initiative by SAB, where young players get exposure and where they have an opportunity to be seen by scouts, to maybe go on and play in a professional set-up in the PSL or the NFD.

“It has been very impressive, there have been quite a few players I think are good enough to go and play in one of the top divisions, because from what I have seen the standard is quite high this year,” he said.

As a respected and successful front man in his own playing days, Petersen has being paying special attention to the strikers on display at Idas Valley and has some advice for the youngsters.

“There are quite a few strikers here that I think could be goal scorers at the highest levels. But some of them are quite raw. They need to learn where to make their runs from, how to run off the ball, how to position themselves, their composure, getting into the box, allowing the midfielders to do their job.”