Springboks
Toyota Free State Cheetahs centre Robert Ebersohn has been called up to the Springbok squad currently preparing for the Castle Lager Incoming Series in Durban.
Ebersohn’s inclusion follows uncertainty over the availability of midfielders Jean de Villiers (mild hamstring strain) and JJ Engelbrecht (quad contusion), while Juan de Jongh has already been ruled out of Saturday’s Test against Italy because of a finger injury.
Former Varsity Cup-winning Maties head coach and a current member of SARU’s High Performance Mobi-unit, Chean Roux, has been added to the Springbok Team Management in the role of Performance Analyst.
It won’t all be plain sailing for Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer as on Monday he begins the buildup to Saturday’s first test match of the season against Italy in Durban.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has announced his Springbok squad for the 2013 June Internationals.
The surprise inclusions are Lourens Adriaanse, Trevor Nyakane and Bjorn Basson.
The surprise omissions are Raymond Rhule, Robert Ebersohn, Ryan Kankowski and Elton Jantjies.
Nine uncapped players, six of whom have not been part of the national set-up before, have been included in a 34-man Springbok squad for the Castle Lager Incoming Series involving Italy, Samoa and Scotland later this month.
Heyneke Meyer feared he had ruined Tom Youngs’ career when he persuaded the Englishman to switch from centre to hooker. The Springbok coach can probably rest easy now.
The South African Rugby Union has confirmed that Rohan Janse van Rensburg will replace his Blue Bulls team mate Jan Serfontein in the South Africa Under-20 squad for the Junior World Championship (JWC).
How will Heyneke Meyer fare in 2013?
Well there are a lot of surprises in the mid-year appointments this year, and I’m not sure how much can be read into them.
We are all well aware of the host of South African rugby players who are plying their trade outside of South Africa. For this article we venture into the land of make belief and choose a squad made up entirely of players with South African connections playing in the current season’s RaboDirect Pro12 competition. – The ‘Raboboks’
A group of 38 players, featuring eight players who were not part of the first camp, will assemble in Durban for the second Springbok training camp before the final squad for the Castle Lager Incoming Series is named early next month.
The Sharks and the Springboks have received a blow with the news that wing JP Pietersen will be sidelined for an extended period.
It was the Springboks’ best performance of the tour. A real confidence booster after the shock defeat against the University side but at the same time a game that had a negative impact in more than one way. It showed New Zealand the danger of allowing the Springboks space to play the Craven-linking pattern. Not that New Zealand was unaware of the Springbok style but it re-affirmed the necessity of keeping the Springboks on the back foot.
The Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) have announced that will be raising funds for former player, Tinus Linee at next week’s Super Rugby match between the Stormers and the Reds at Newlands.
Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett believes the reason for the exodus of South Africa’s top players is due to players putting their careers at risk without proper compensation.
Samoa have named a very strong squad – comprising just two locally based players – for their tour of South Africa next month.
Scott Johnson, the current head coach of the Scotland team has been appointed Director of Rugby for Scottish Rugby. The post has been described by Scottish Rugby as “absolutely integral to Scotland’s standing on the world stage in the next decade and beyond.”
Today we received an open letter to Jurie Roux, SARU CEO, lamenting the fact that the design and production of the nationally important new Springbok Museum in Cape Town was awarded to a UK (English) design company.
A number of years ago I learnt and realised first hand how apathetic South Africans are when it comes to doing something for this sport we love so much, rugby in South Africa. I learnt that SARU can do anything they want, there will be a few muted murmers and a lot of around the braai chatter about how these fools run OUR game, but nobody does anything about it and eventually these fools at SARU just laugh at us… seeing us all as mere consumers of the game, not de facto stakeholders in the game.
Suffice to say that I am deeply concerned about how SARU runs rugby in South Africa and for South African interests.
Without further a do, here is the exact contents of the letter, take a look for yourself:
Former Springbok Tinus Linee has been diagnosed with the same disease suffered by former Springbok Joost van der Westhuizen, it was reported on Tuesday.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) today announced that 15 players, including exciting youngsters such as Eben Etzebeth, Marcell Coetzee, Juan de Jongh and Pat Lambie and world stars such as Jean de Villiers, Tendai Mtawarira and Bismarck du Plessis, have been awarded Springbok contracts for 2013.
Noticeably, conversation about the 1956 tour always detour to the match against the New Zealand Universities. Historically, it was the first time a New Zealand University team played against an international touring side but this match is synonymous with the 1956 tour for other reasons. The fact that the Universities team won is also not really the main reason why Kiwi’s still rate this match as the best match of the tour. It was the manner in which the Universities team won that delighted the New Zealand rugby fraternity. All the good football came from the home side. The backs demonstrated opportunism, sensible anticipation and application while the pack totally dominated proceedings. The game is nevertheless mostly remembered as the game of the great Ron Jardon ‘try-that-wasn’t’. A great howl went up in protest when Jardon was called back after a spectacular 65 meter run through almost the entire Springbok team (listen to Winston McCarthy highlights of the match here) and old-timers almost without exception still mention the Jardon try to this day whenever the 1956 tour are under discussion.
Cheetahs and Bok pivot Johan Goosen’s knee operation to repair damage to his knee ligament was a success, and he was present at the Cheetahs training session on Monday.
The SA Under-20 training squad to face Argentina Under-20 in their second tour match on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 shows thirteen changes from the starting team that won their tour opener 26-3 on Saturday evening in Corrientes.
Sharks scrumhalf Cobus Reinach has been called up to the Springbok training camp in Cape Town following a slight injury to Jano Vermaak.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has revealed that he will never omit Bulls captain Pierre Spies from his squad.
Springbok and Stormers stalwart Schalk Burger’s career has been put on hold, after it was revealed on Thursday that he is suffering from a life-threatening disease.
The Burger family issued a brief media statement in which they revealed that the 29-year-old loose forward has bacterial meningitis.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has confirmed a 34-man squad on Thursday for the SA Under-20 tour to Argentina in April.
Current captain Jean de Villiers will join the oldest living Springbok skipper, 83-year-old Des van Jaarsveldt, and 40 others in Cape Town on Wednesday, to mark the countdown to the opening of a new rugby museum.
Andries Bekker, the most-capped DHL Stormers player in the history of Super Rugby, will move to Japanese club Kobelco Steelers at the conclusion of the 2013 Vodacom Super Rugby season.
We take a look at Springbok participation in the Tri-Nations (now expanded and renamed The Rugby Championship).
The Springboks took part in the Southern Hemisphere’s premier international competition just five years after being readmitted to international competition in the 90’s.
After my tribute to Jan Ellis I thought I just have to write something about the man who was a big part of Jan’s success as a Springbok rugby player, Piet Greyling.
Currie Cup-winning Transvaal captain in 1971 and 1972, former Springbok flanker Piet Greyling, was arguably one of the best, but certainly one of the toughest.
The picture below shows Piet Greyling with his Transvaal side who got a share of the Currie Cup for the first time in 19 years – having previously won it in 1952 – when they shared the cup with Northern Transvaal in an epic final and controversial 14-14 draw at Ellis Park in 1971. The next year Greyling led his Transvaal side to a 25-19 win over Eastern Transvaal at Pam Brink Stadium in Springs to win the cup with the help of Gerald Bosch who dropped the winning points in the final minutes. It was back in 1972, before the Currie Cup final against Eastern Transvaal in Springs that the former Bok captain uttered these famous words to his Transvaal team-mates: “Eighty minutes of agony for an eternity of pleasure.”
With the news this week that Springbok great, Jan Ellis, passed away at the age of 71, I just had to write this tribute to Jan.
Jan Ellis personifies Springbok rugby for me. It has been said that as humans we think in pictures. When we think of something we see a picture of some sorts and this picture can differ from one person to the next, which is why we sometimes voice the same words but come up with different understanding or meaning. The best communicators are those who can create clear and vivid pictures in the mind of his listeners.
When I think of Springbok rugby I see Jan Ellis. Hard, uncompromising, fast with a touch of artistic moodiness and flair but with relentless motivation to succeed based on a staunch work ethic and absolute conviction of what is right and wrong – that is Jan Ellis in a nutshell, for me.
So, I don’t see all that, I just see pictures of Jan Ellis flashing through my mind.
(see the photo gallery I’ve created of Jan Ellis here).
The analogy between the Springboks and Jan Ellis, for me, came along probably because I had so many pictures of Jan Ellis when I started with my sampling of rugby pictures in 1970. I was born in Windhoek, South West Africa (now Namibia) and Jan was SWA’s second Springbok, the first being Sias Swart.
The South African Rugby Union on Friday expressed its deep sadness at the passing of legendary former Springbok looseforward, Jan Ellis.
The one-time joint record holder for the number of Springbok caps succumbed to cancer at a hospice in Pretoria after suffering from the disease for some time. He celebrated his 71st birthday in January.
The 1974 Tour of the Lions to South Africa was undoubtedly the most unsettling tour ever for Springbok rugby. Touring unbeaten through South Africa superior in every aspect in virtually every single match including the test matches it was a massive wake-up call for South African rugby.
I was 12 years old when this tour eventuated. In my mind at that time the Springboks had an aura of invincibility. I was too young to know about the 1956 and 1965 tours as the patriotic Afrikaans media did not write much about it. The country was still in euphoria after the 1970 victory over Lochore’s All Blacks and the unbeaten 1971 tour to Australia. It was never said in so many words but generally the 1972 loss against England was seen as just a hiccup; a fleeting glitch due to team selections and underestimation of the opposition.
I was reading some Tweets this morning when I came across this article from Mark Keohane and I have to say a very well written one at that, about John Plumtree.
Now here I want to give my point of view – as I feel we all will in one form or another acknowledge (although I do not wish to add to what is already said in the article) and I feel the man has paid his dues, he has done everything that should be expected of him and more.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer’s priority will always be to pick local players first, but the South African Rugby Union may have conceded the fight to keep top Springboks in South Africa in the near future.