Daily Archives: 29 September 2016
Rudy Paige will make his starting debut for the Springboks on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld in the team’s penultimate Castle Lager Rugby Championship fixture of the year.
The inclusion of Paige at scrumhalf is one of three changes made to the Springbok line-up that started the match against the All Blacks two weeks ago in Christchurch.
Paige, who has made four Test appearances from the Bok bench, will partner the experienced Morné Steyn in the halfbacks. They take over from Faf de Klerk and Elton Jantjies respectively, both of whom started in the last six Tests of the year.
The only other change to the starting line-up sees Pat Lambie return to the team for the first time since he suffered concussion in the series opener against Ireland in June. Lambie will play fullback, where he is preferred over Johan Goosen. The Cell C Sharks player, who will earn his 52nd Springbok cap, has already scored 137 Test points in the Green and Gold jersey.
The Springbok forward pack that played against the All Blacks in Christchurch was kept unchanged, with hooker Adriaan Strauss again leading out the team after he suffered a knock to the lower back in New Zealand.
Alan Solomons
Langilangi Haupeakui
There were some big news announcements yesterday from both of Scotland’s professional clubs. The one from Edinburgh Rugby was about a departure while the one from Glasgow Warriors was about an arrival. Sticking one’s neck out it would seem that both announcements were seen as positive news by the clubs’ fans.
Edinburgh Rugby announced that Head Coach Alan Solomons was leaving and would be replaced in the interim by Duncan Hodge while Glasgow Warriors announced the acquisition of powerhouse player Langilangi Haupeakui from US PRO Rugby outfit Sacramento Express.
Alan Solomons vacates his post before completing his contract which would have taken him to the end of the current season. His previous contract expired at the end of last season and he had signed to stay on for one more year in Edinburgh.
There has always seemed to a bit of mixed feelings between the Edinburgh fans with some rather more supportive of Solomons than others. He took over at a time were really struggling and for some he has brought stability to the club and a measure of success, taking Edinburgh to a European Cup final, albeit in the second tier of Europe, and claiming back the 1872 Cup from bitter rivals Glasgow Warriors.
His critics feel that he has not done anymore with Edinburgh than a local coach could given the same level of investment and felt that his game plan was far too prescriptive and conservative and stifled his team, now where have we heard that before? It would seem that he didn’t have the copyright on this as far as many South African coaches go in the eyes of the various sets of fans.