ARTICLE IN SATURDAY STAR 6 OCTOBER 2007

When Vlado Trninic came to South African from Croatia 15 years ago, it was immediately apparent that he was in a class of his own as a waterpolo player.

No one would have known however just what an impact he would have on the sport in this country, at all levels, in the years to come.

In recognition of the contribution he has made, Trninic has been nominated for the award of coach of the year that will be made at tonight’s Telkom Swimming South Africa Aquatic Awards.  The other nominations for the award are swimming coaches Alistair Hatfield, Graham Hill and Santa van Jaarsveld.

Apart from his contribution, as player-coach, in making Easterns the top province in the country for many years, Trninic has taken St John’s College, where he is a teacher and head waterpolo coach, to the top school in the country.  He has also coached Central Gauteng to victory in the Kramer national provincial championships for three years in a row;  he was national U20 coach for five years and has been involved in the senior national side as player, captain and coach.

Earlier this year he coached the South African national side at the World Championships in Australia where they ended up in 14th place out of 16, having lost the 13th place playoff to China in a penalty shoot-out.

Their 14th place doesn’t sound too impressive, but it is the best result for a South African team since the return from isolation and earlier in the tournament they lost 13-5 to eventual winners Croatia and 12-6 to Australia.  For the young amateur South African side to be so competitive against the full-time professionals that make up world waterpolo teams is a remarkable achievement.

While Trninic has achieved much at a national level, his passion is clearly with St John’s, where he has developed a world-class training facility and a system that has produced a stream of provincial and national players over the years.

Hew is clearly still smarting at his team’s quarterfinal exit at the recent SACS festival – there were two crucial refereeing errors in their 4-2 loss to eventual winners Westville Boys’ High – but he is already looking forward to the new season.

“We have a young side, we only lost one player at the end of this year” he says, “so things are looking food for next year.  The loss at SACS was disappointing but we did win the KES tournament in March and that is the more important one as it features full-length games and is therefore proper polo”.

St the St John’s first team will once again be the side to watch next season, and their juniors are as strong as ever, it seems.

The Gauteng Schools squads for the interprovincial tournaments at the end of the year were announced last week, and St John’s are well-represented with nine players in the U19 squad, seven in the U16’s, seven in the U14’s and four in the U13 team, including Trninic’s son, Dan.