Daily Archives: 9 February 2015
Duane Vermeulen
Springbok No 8 Duane Vermeulen was the star of the annual South African Rugby Union Player of the Year Awards when he walked off with 3 awards, including the main award of the season.
Vermeulen was named SARU Rugby Player of the Year after an extensive voting process, which included the country’s rugby media and the public through SARU’s online and social media platforms.
The 28-year-old Vermeulen, who will captain the DHL Stormers this year, also won the coveted SARPA Players’ Player of the Year and Vodacom Super Rugby Player of the Year Awards for 2014.
“Duane has been outstanding in 2014 and these awards are just reward for the excellent form he showed last year, as one of the Springboks’ key performers and for the DHL Stormers,” said SARU President, Mr Oregan Hoskins.
Hot on Vermeulen’s heels, with two awards, was young Springbok flyhalf and Junior Springbok captain Handré Pollard.
The game time of a number of key Springboks will be managed throughout the Vodacom Super Rugby series in the coming months, following an agreement between the South African Rugby Union and the franchises.
These players’ game time will be handled on an individual basis depending on their work load in the last year as well as injuries, in an effort to ensure the Springboks are managed as well as possible in the build-up to the Rugby World Cup in September and October.
“We are extremely grateful to the Vodacom Super Rugby franchises for agreeing to assist in ensuring our key players’ game time is managed in the build-up to the Rugby World Cup,” said SARU CEO Jurie Roux.
“It’s wonderful to know we have the support and cooperation of the franchises as the Springboks prepare for the Rugby World Cup and we’d like to wish them all the best for the forthcoming months of Vodacom Super Rugby.
UCT (8) 32 / 32 (8) Maties (Final Score)
FNB UCT and FNB Maties did battle in Round 1 of the Varsity Cup at
UCT Rugby Fields, Cape Town at 19:00 SA Time (17:00 GMT).
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was broadcast LIVE on SuperSport 1 & CSN on TV in SA.
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Pukke (15) 36 / 26 (5) NMMU (Final Score)
FNB NWU-Pukke and FNB NMMU did battle in Round 1 of the Varsity Cup at
Fanie du Toit Stadium, Potchefstroom at 16:45 SA Time (14:45 GMT).
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was broadcast LIVE on SuperSport 1 & CSN on TV in SA.
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Steven Kitshoff
Stormers and Western Province prop Steven Kitshoff has signed a contract with French Top 14 club, Bordeaux-Begles.
Kitshoff’s agent, Hilton Houghton, confirmed that his client has signed 2-year deal with the French club.
The 22-year-old is still contracted to Western Province until the end of October and will leave for France after the conclusion of this year’s Currie Cup competition.
Kitshoff, a former Baby Bok who boasts 45 Super Rugby caps, last played a first class match on 3 May last year before a knee injury ended his 2014 season.
Dean Greyling
Marcel van der Merwe
The Vodacom Bulls will be without Springbok props Dean Greyling and Marcel van der Merwe and World Cup winning winger Akona Ndungane for the opening weekend of the Vodacom Super Rugby competition. The Vodacom Bulls play DHL Stormers on Saturday night, but Ndungane (calf, 1 week), Greyling (foot, 2 weeks) and Van der Merwe (hamstring, 3 weeks) will not be part of the action.
To complicate matters a bit more for Vodacom Bulls coach, Frans Ludeke, winger Travis Ismaiel has been ruled out for selection due to a hamstring strain and prop Hencus van Wyk (foot) will only return to training at the end of the month.
All of Basil Short (pectoral), Jason Jenkins (quad), Trevor Nyakane (contusion), Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg (hamstring), Deon Stegmann (hip) and Jesse Kriel (neck) completed a full training session today.
Ruan Botha
Damian de Allende
Nizaam Carr
The DHL Stormers have been boosted by the return to fitness of Springboks Nizaam Carr and Damian de Allende as well as lock Ruan Botha ahead of their Super Rugby encounter against the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday.
Wing Kobus van Wyk is an injury doubt however, and flank Siya Kolisi will not be risked this weekend.
The Stormers will travel to Loftus Versfeld for their 2015 season-opener, before hosting New Zealand side, the Blues, at Newlands the following weekend.
The team, to face the Bulls, will be announced at lunch-time on Thursday.
Jean Deysel
Michael Claassens
The Cell C Sharks announced that loose-forward Jean Deysel, who has spent the past 6 months playing for Toyota Verbiltz in Japan, will be making a welcome return to the Cell C Sharks for the 2015 Super Rugby season.
Deysel who to date has been capped an impressive 117 times for the Cell C Sharks, will join the squad immediately.
South African born scrum-half, Michael Claassens, who currently plays for Toulon in the French Top 14, has also been signed on a 2-year deal. He is expected to join the team as soon as his playing commitments in France have concluded.
The 2015 edition of the South African Rugby Annul goes on sale nationwide today after being launched at Sunday’s South African Rugby Union Awards in Johannesburg.
In keeping with tradition, the 44th edition of the ‘bible’ of the game once again features South Africa’s player of the year on the cover, with the newly-crowned Duane Vermeulen following in the footsteps of the likes of Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana and Schalk Burger in recent years.
“Even in this digital age, it’s vitally important to retain a physical document of record for future generations,” said SARU CEO, Jurie Roux. “SARU strives to be a world leader in the game both on and off the field and when it comes to the Annual, we are immensely proud of the quality of the book we continue to produce year in and year out.
“We like to believe that we have an outstanding yearbook but that hasn’t stopped us from raising the bar even further with this new-look, Rugby World Cup-themed edition. We’ve made it a more user-friendly size, refreshed the layout and added a depth to the statistical records that surpasses anything we’ve done before,” Roux added.
Francois Uys
The Cheetahs, in a surprise move, named Francois Uys as their captain for the Super Rugby season.
Uys will be leading the team, joined by the vice-captain Sarel Pretorius.
The ‘well-informed’ media in Bloemfontein have been speculating for weeks that Japan-based Springbok Heinrich Brüssow would get the leadership armband.
However, coach Naka Drotské decided to go with Uys – starting from Saturday, when they take on the South African conference champions, the Cell C Sharks, in Durban.
The Springbok Sevens have called up wing Rosko Specman in place of the injured Justin Geduld for the next leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series in Las Vegas.
The 3-day USA rugby event kicks off this coming Friday and South Africa are the defending champions.
Geduld suffered a hamstring injury over the weekend at the Wellington Sevens, where the Springbok Sevens claimed 3rd spot after a strong finish in their playoff match against Scotland. Specman (Steval Pumas) has 1 World Series tournament under his belt.
South Africa head the log with 76 points halfway through the 9-tournament World Series and are 7 points clear of New Zealand, who moved into 2nd place. The top 4 sides on the final standings in May will gain automatic entry into the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.
Sam Wykes
The Western Force have named lock Sam Wykes as interim Super Rugby captain whilst regular captain Matt Hodgson recovers from injury.
Hodgson will miss the beginning of the season after suffering a hamstring injury in the team’s 38 / 19 pre-season win over the Asia Pacific Dragons.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) on Monday confirmed that the Springboks will get their season underway against a World XV in Cape Town on 11 July, a week after the Super Rugby final.
The match was initially scheduled for late August.
The Springboks also got their 2014 season under way with a clash against the World XV at Newlands, with the South Africans running out 47 / 13 victors on that occasion.
A strong second half saw Rugby World Cup 2015 hosts England storm back to beat Wales 21 / 16 in their Six Nations opener in Cardiff, a result which lifted them above Ireland back to 3rd in the latest World Rugby rankings.
According to the World Rugby (previously IRB), the victory sees England regain the mantle as the leading northern hemisphere nation in the rankings behind New Zealand and South Africa and they now sit 0.35 points above Ireland after their 26 / 3 victory over Italy in Rome had no impact due to the 11 places separating the teams.