Player Profile: Ruby Kraus [Durban Girls’ College]
The KwaZulu-Natal Coastal u16 side was trailing 0-1 and had only a minute and 20 seconds to find an equaliser. Coach Chardinay Penniston pulled off Ella Carstens, her goalkeeper, and sent on another striker.
The Western Province players had possession and were taking the most pragmatic path; if they launched an attack towards the Coastal goal, they ran the risk of exposing themselves to a counterattack. They were better served running down the clock.
Ruby Kraus pressed the Province player in possession. The player stumbled. Kraus won the ball on the edge of the D, quickly scanned her surroundings, teed up, and unfurled a shot that flew into the top right corner of the goal.
“She has determination and the willingness to go the extra mile, testing boundaries, and taking risks,” said Penniston. The coach’s eyes light up when she talks about Kraus, one of her leading strikers. The young woman has made Penniston do cartwheels in celebration after burgling goals and helping her team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
“Ruby is a great leader, and this shows with the relationship she has with her teammates,” Keegan Hezlett, who began coaching the Durban Girls’ College striker when she was 10, said.
“Often people at a young age can get the captaincy wrong, but Ruby’s ability to put her team’s needs above hers is evident. She loves success, whether it be for the team or herself personally. She is always trying to hold herself and her team to a high standard.”
Welcome to the Rubyverse.
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Ruby Kraus was one of those kids. Not the ones who play under the stands while the match was being contested on the astro. She perched herself on the top seat and watched the game intently. By the time she was eight, she understood the game enough to have opinions on right and wrong calls. She was right more often than not.
Kraus spent her early years on the side of the hockey pitch cheering on her brothers, Ethan and Byron. They played for KwaZulu-Natal Coastal’s age group sides and for Clifton. Her parents, Mike and Charmaine Kraus, have tried to attend every sporting event their children have been involved in, so Ruby Kraus went on every tour and they did not miss a match.
“From around five or six, Ruby was on the side of the pitch every time. She would run on the pitch to hit goals at halftime. There was a very good hockey-playing family in Durban, the Montgomery brothers, the younger Montgomery brother was always with Ruby, hitting balls,” Mike Kraus said.
When she was not playing cheerleader for her brothers, Kraus competed against them in the backyard. According to sports scientists, participating in informal play with older siblings forces the development of more advanced skills at a younger age to keep up with their teammates. Having older brothers also means a greater physical discrepancy, so girls must smarten up and toughen up.
One of her brothers was a goalkeeper and the other a defender. They did not make it easy for her to score goals. Kraus had to be at her attacking best to score.
Younger siblings often develop ‘superior perceptual-cognitive skills, more creativity and highly refined technical skills’ than older siblings, researchers have noted.
The other advantage of competing against older siblings is that the younger siblings lose more often than they win. Those experiences force children to become adept at dealing with failure, harnessing their competitiveness and mental resilience.
“When I first started coaching her, I was amazed to meet a young player of her nature, you know, a forward/striker that did not present a big physical presence and outspoken personality. But she surely did make up for it by being so lethal in scoring goals,” Nolwazi Nkabinde, the South African Schools coach, shared.
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“My brothers are quite a lot older than me, but that didn’t matter because I always thought I was better than them,” Kraus revealed.
She did not just think that she was better than her brothers, she was also intent on carving a path for herself in the sport. She was not content with being Ethan and Byron’s young sister. She wanted to be seen as Ruby Kraus.
That separation of self began with her getting a hockey stick that allowed her personality to shine. She was in love with Osaka sticks and pestered her parents to get her one. They relented and provided her with one with elaborate Osaka details.
That was the stick she took along with her to her first private coaching lessons with Kate Koenig. The former South African international took the backyard warrior and set her on a path to becoming a player to be reckoned with.
“Kate Koenig is responsible for how I play today. She provided the foundation to my game, taught me how to shoot, and everything else. I’m so grateful for all that she’s done for me,” Kraus shared.
Koenig was succeeded by Keegan Hezlett. What immediately stood out for the current Durban High School 1st XI coach was Kraus’ natural ability as a player. However, what was even more impressive to him was her drive to not rely on her talent.
“No one sees the hard work she does behind the scenes. That’s how she has always been,” Hezlett said.
That hard work was complimented by her readiness to trust her coaches and try new things. It is a theme that has remained constant throughout her dealings with Nkabinde and Penniston, too.
“All these coaches, including our [KZN Coastal] u18 coach, JJ [Jacinta Wedderburn], have always put in the extra effort for me and everyone else. I am grateful for all of the different angles they have brought to my game. I think sometimes having different coaches adds to your versatility,” Kraus said.
The work she put in with her coaches was put to the test at school and when she turned out for her clubs. First, she played for Crusaders, but at 15 she switched to Riverside.
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Ruby Kraus on the golf course was a regular sight during the lockdown. She left the house every day at sundown with her sticks and balls and went to the course to practice her skills and timing. Those sessions ran the risk of taking forever because she always had something she wanted to work on.
When the restrictions were eased, but sports were not yet officially allowed to resume, Kraus was one of the first players back on the Astro. “She was back at Riverside practicing on her own all the time, as much as she could, and she also picked up on her private lessons,” Mike Kraus explained.
The hours she spent alone and with her private coaches explain who she is as a hockey player. “I think that’s where I’m the hardest on myself. I always go back to watch my games and see what I could have done at that moment, and I make sure that I work on anything that I need to improve,” Kraus said.
Her dedication to improving is the reason why she is one of the best strikers in South African schoolgirls’ hockey. She was KZN Coastal’s leading goal scorer at the recent SASHOC U18 National Week and finished as the third highest scorer in the tournament. Kraus is also one of the best executors of the tomahawk and can use it to score from anywhere in the circle.
“She has grown enormously over the past few years. She is more creative with her scoring techniques, has a more diverse repertoire, and is always brave to take a chance to score with flair,” said Nkabinde, who added Kraus’s incredible work rate off the ball as another of her strengths.
“Ruby has grown so much from her grade 9 year to now, that I think, ‘yeah, it’s two unrecognisable people’. The potential was always there and I’m so glad that all her achievements and her accomplishments have come to be a testament to all the hard work she has put in,” Penniston concurred.
Her dedication has allowed her to perform even when the stakes were high. It has also earned her national age group call-ups. However, one of her greatest moments was when she played one of her best games while competing against Shelley Jones (nee Russell), her hero, who played 276 matches for South Africa.
“I have always looked up to my brothers. They do not give up even when things look hard. But I have also always been obsessed with Shelley Jones. One of my teachers knew of my love for her and got her to write me a message and I think I’ve still got that message. Everything came full circle when I ended up playing against her at club level,” she explained.
Meeting Jones was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream, but that was not her only hockey ambition. Kraus has other mountains she hopes to scale, one of them being to help her school clinch the Super 12 title. The other is to represent South Africa at international level.
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