Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer on Wednesday named the same starting line-up that beat New Zealand a month ago to face Ireland in the opening Test of the Castle Lager Outgoing Tour on Dublin on Saturday.
The only change to the match-day squad is at replacement prop, where the injured Marcel van der Merwe is replaced by Coenie Oosthuizen.
“Although Julian Redelinghuys was also considered, he’s still new in the team and not familiar with our patterns of play and especially the line-out calls, while Coenie knows the way we play well,” said Meyer.
“Coenie is also in great shape and we know what he can do, especially if he has to make an impact off the bench. It’s good to have him back.”
Meyer was very happy with the continuity in selection from the last Test.
“It’s only the fifth time in what will be the 34th Test since I was appointed as Springbok coach that we’ve been able to select an unchanged starting line-up,” said Meyer.
“In this day and age, not making changes to teams is pretty much unheard of, but this is a great position we’re in. However, we need to make it count against a very tough Irish side on Saturday.
“Although we won our last Test, the challenge this week is to make another step up. It’s imperative that we improve in all facets of our play.”
Springbok team:
15 Willie le Roux (21 caps, 35 points)
14 Cornal Hendricks (9 caps, 25 points)
13 Jan Serfontein (16 caps, 5 points)
12 Jean de Villiers (Captain – 102 caps, 135 points)
11 Bryan Habana (103 caps, 280 points)
10 Handré Pollard (6 caps, 56 points)
9 Francois Hougaard (32 caps, 25 points)
8 Duane Vermeulen (25 caps, 10 points)
7 Teboho “Oupa” Mohoje (3 caps, 0 points)
6 Marcell Coetzee (22 caps, 25 points)
5 Victor Matfield (Vice-captain – 117 caps, 35 points)
4 Eben Etzebeth (29 caps, 0 points)
3 Jannie du Plessis (60 caps, 5 points)
2 Bismarck du Plessis (66 caps, 45 points)
1 Tendai Mtawarira (61 caps, 10 points)
Replacements:
16 Adriaan Strauss ( 40 caps, 25 points)
17 Trevor Nyakane (9 caps, 5 points)
18 Coenie Oosthuizen (17 caps, 10 points)
19 Bakkies Botha (83 caps, 35 points)
20 Schalk Burger (73 caps, 65 points)
21 Cobus Reinach (2 caps, 0 points)
22 Pat Lambie (36 caps, 81 points)
23 JP Pietersen (56 caps, 85 points)
Stats and facts:
- The Springbok starting team boasts a total of 672 Test caps (289 in the backline and 383 in the forwards), while there are a further 316 caps worth of experience on the bench.
- South Africa and Ireland have played each other 21 times since 1906, with the Springboks winning 16 Tests, losing four and one was drawn. The Springboks have scored 417 points and 60 tries and conceded 248 points and 24 tries for an average score of 20-12.
- South Africa and Ireland last met on 10 November 2012 at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. The Springboks won 16-12.
- Jean de Villiers will extend his record as the most-capped Springbok centre, with 87 Tests in this position and will captain South Africa for the 31st time, placing him third behind John Smit (83) and Gary Teichmann (36).
- Victor Matfield will extend his own record as the most capped Springbok in history (117 Tests). He will also extend his record of 117 Tests as a lock and will also extend his record as the oldest Springbok ever at 37 years & 146 days.
- Bryan Habana will extend his record as the most-capped Springbok wing, with 102 Tests in this position. If he scores a try, he will extend his record of 56 Test tries for South Africa.
- If he scores a try Bismarck du Plessis will extend his record of nine Test tries for South Africa as a hooker. Bismarck and his older brother Jannie will extend their record of playing together in 40 Tests for the Springboks. Bismarck, Jannie and Tendai Mtawarira will also extend their record of 15 tests in the starting line-up as a front-row trio for South Africa.
- If he goes on as a flank, Schalk Burger will extend his own record as the most-capped Springbok flanker in history (71 caps). If he goes on as a flank and scores a try, he will become the sole record-holder for most Test tries as a flanker (11), a record he currently shares with Juan Smith.
- Willie le Roux, Cornal Hendricks, Duane Vermeulen, Jannie du Plessis and Bismarck du Plessis have played in all nine Tests for the Springboks in 2014. Bryan Habana and Tendai Mtawarira have both missed only one Test in 2014.
- Schalk Burger (Jnr) and Cobus Reinach (both on the bench) are sons of former Springboks. Schalk Burger (Snr) played six Tests for South Africa (1984-1986) and the late Jaco Reinach four Tests for South Africa in 1986. They played together in all four Tests against the New Zealand Cavaliers in 1986.
- For Pat Lambie this is a return to the city where he made his Test debut off the bench against Ireland in 2010.
- It will be the third time in history that a Springbok team will have three centurions in the starting line-up. The two previous occasions were against Australia and New Zealand in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship earlier this year.
- Adriaan Strauss played against his cousin Richardt Strauss when the Springboks and Ireland last met in Dublin on 10 November, 2012. They are likely to meet each other again as Richardt is in the Ireland squad for this Test match.
- It will be Heyneke Meyer’s 34th Test in charge of the Springboks since he took over in 2012. Of the previous 33 Tests South Africa have won 24, lost seven and drawn twice. His winning percentage of 73% is second only to Kitch Christie’s 100% (14 Tests 1994-1995) since 1992.
- The referee is Romain Poite of France. It will be his fifth Test involving South Africa. In previous Tests the Springboks have won three and lost one. His last Test involving South Africa was in June this year against Wales in Durban – a game that the Springboks won 38-16.
Springbok Test match records in Dublin:
- Most points – 12 by Percy Montgomery (3c, 2p) against Ireland on 28 November, 1998 and Percy Montgomery again on 13 November, 2004 (4p).
- Most tries – three by Jan Stegmann and “Boetie” McHardy against Ireland on 30 November, 1912.
- Most conversions – three Gerhard Morkel against Ireland on 30 November, 1912 and by Percy Montgomery against Ireland on 28 November, 1998.
- Most penalty goals – four by Percy Montgomery against Ireland on 13 November, 2004.
- Most drop goals – one by Hannes Brewis against Ireland on 8 December, 1951 and by Morne Steyn against Ireland on 28 November, 2009.
Date: Saturday 8 November
Venue: Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Kick-Off: 19:30 SA Time (17:30 BST & GMT)
Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Assistant Referees: Mathieu Raynal (France), Alexandre Ruiz (France)
TMO: Jim Yuille (Scotland)
Awesome highlights package from the last Barbarians game
I wish the barbarians could have had a full tour!
151… How awesome was Saiilis conversion?
And they say kickers have tough jobs 😆
grootblousmile wrote:
They had lots of dirt players around at the time
With harde manne like Moaner van Heerden, Jan Bull Pickhard and Jan Boland Coetzee around you had to man up or quit playing
147 @ Victoriabok:
Some stories, my friend, can’t be retold on a blog…
Like the time 2 married floozies picked me and a friend up at New Union Hotel… and we were still inno.. err unattached University students (you can’t call a Universary student innocent).
Or the time that I went to a girls’s flat from the Joolplaas, after Bierbliktoringbou, she was a “Screamer” and her folks was asleep in the Lounge of the Bachelors flat…
Or all the stories of the Dominee’s daughter… interesting she looked me up on Facebook a few years ago and we are now Facebook friends, phweeew she is still such a fox… fokkit!
Or what really, really happened at the Drive In…
If that RX2 rotary Mazdaratti could talk, the rotary engine would run all night, blabbing away!
MacroBok wrote:
Brilliant, it’s nice to see players enjoying the game
Jacques Botes’ try at the end is the reason why the Babaas concept exist and should remain
grootblousmile wrote:
I can see the ad in Autotrader
Mazda RX2 low kilometers, good paint job, tyres excellent
Backseat worn out, springs showing, needs replacement
R20 000 ono
Phone 0800-GROOT-BLOU-SLANG
Good article, I like it how they kick less and handle the ball more
http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/11/05/getting-better-all-the-time-why-rugby-is-the-best-it-has-ever-been/
Getting better all the time: Why rugby is the best it has ever been
Everyone who has read my articles consistently knows I love history. I like the threads that bind humans to the past.
I don’t assume we always know better than those who came before us. I love the stories of rugby; the evolution in the early days. I tend to go to history to understand the present.
But this should not translate into ‘good old days’ syndrome.
Rugby is better now.
The issue is will it continue to improve? Or will the forces and counter-forces that make up the tapestry of the world order of rugby conspire to stagnate union?
First, let me prove that rugby is better, as a spectacle and as a sporting code. The most important proof of this is the shape of the game.
From the time rugby became professional until now, the ratio of breakdown-to-set piece has gone from a mere 2:1 or 3:1, to its current 10:1. This is not merely due to the increase of actual ball-in-play (43-45 per cent of the time now, up from the mid-to-high 30 per cent level before 1995).
Knock-ons are a lot less frequent. This means that in times past, we could expect 27-30 scrums a game (a fact all of us who played in the 80s and early 90s remember all too well). Now, less than 15 scrums are frequent (8-12 is becoming a norm), and there are games when it is almost half-time before a scrum occurs.
The scrum is essential to rugby. Quite frankly, it is the organising principle still for the game and for forward selection, and remains a dangerous means of triggering attacks on the opponents’ line.
But given that collapses and resets and penalties are more common than easily-functioning scrums (and it is worse when top teams play each other), clearly the fewer-scrum change is a good development.
The conundrum is this. Lineouts and scrums are still the best means to score tries. Typically, more than half the tries scored come from these old familiar set pieces. But teams are becoming better at retaining their own lineouts, and thus, creating these try-triggers involuntarily is more difficult.
Also, while defensive pressure does create a scrum, most teams have better ball-handlers across the park than ever before.
For all the moaning about kicking nowadays, the halfbacks kick a lot less now than in the good old days. This is indisputable, outside of knockout rugby where teams kick 50-75per cent more than in other games.
In decades prior, a 50-punt game was normal, even 60 was typical. Now, a 40-punt game seems like a kick-fest.
This has resulted in lineout numbers plummeting, too from 37-39 a game to 20-24.
With the ball more in play on the field without handling errors, what we see now in top-level rugby is a quantum leap in passes.
In 1995, a 150-pass Test match was wide-open. Now, 260-275 passes in a game is not uncommon.
A spun backward pass is one of the quintessential rugby characteristics. This is more so than a kick or run, which has its antecedents or facsimiles in soccer or American football.
If done at speed, with two hands, fixing the defender, then a pass is the best attacking fulcrum in rugby.
All of this also translates into more tackles, and is there anything more satisfying for the true rugby fan than a proper or dominant tackle?
And thus, the rucks and mauls of rugby are up three times or more from the old day. It is not shocking at all to see 160-170 rucks in a game.
The breakdown is a more dynamic competition to watch. I would much rather watch David Pocock or Francois Louw ply their artful trade while Brodie Retallick or Willem Alberts try to clean them out, than see Adam Jones and Jannie du Plessis grapple.
The other thing about rugby, for all its grumpy detractors, is that the team who wins is almost always either the team who scores the tries – about 85 per cent of the time. Only about 1-3 per cent of the time does the team who wins the game score less tries. This is also a welcome change.
High-phase ball is still rare, because it does not work very well. About 75 per cent of tries come from movements with three or less phases.
As the phase count goes above ten, it becomes extraordinarily tiring and it becomes likely that the attacking team will spill the pill or run into infringements. As the rucks get messy they may win a penalty which they cannot turn down.
Avoiding the ruck altogether, or clearing it very quickly, is an All Black belief. They do it by passing 9.5-10.0 times per minute of possession, a lot compared to England’s or Ireland’s more pedestrian 8 pass/minute average.
South Africa is currently the multiple personality disorder team of passing. At times, it is off the charts, in other games, they are the stingiest of passers.
It is indisputable that the athletes we watch today are bigger, stronger, faster and more athletic than those we once revered.
Fatigue is a fact of rugby. About 55 per cent of tries come in the second half, as attrition creates space and tackle-cowards.
As this becomes the dividing line between success and failure, coaches may find ways to shrink space on the field and counter-trends may develop.
I love the memory of sweeping length-of-the-field tries from the old days, but when I actually sit down and watch those games, I realise there were some pretty dour contests
Today is the best time in rugby.
157 @ Victoriabok:
The paintjob was’nt that great… fark it was green with a vinal top to cover some jumping on the roof at a party… hehehe
The tires were’nt good either, too many donuts on the different parks in the Lynnwood area and all sorts of places in the East of Pretoria. They’re all fenced now… hahaha
But the engine was great, took me to 2nd place in our famous “Canon-ball run” to the Voortrekker Monument… that’s another story and a half, considering we went 4 cars next to one another down Lynnwood Road past the men’s Hostels… me on the exteme right hand oncoming lane at the time… never stopped for a single traffic light that night… hehehe
After the Mazdaratti, I bought a Lamborghreenie… a green Toyota Corona… hie hie hie
And no, it would never have made R 20 000.00 not even close, considering I bought it for only R 2 000.00.
We were happy youngsters, living life to the fullest extent!
@ grootblousmile:
Did you ever take it down Voortrekkersweg on a Sunday evening?
160 @ Victoriabok:
Not my part of town that part… and I was never into dragstrip racing… so no, never.
grootblousmile wrote:
Lynnwood Drive in?
Bestaan hy nog?
@ nortie:
no you bad man how could you hope it comes back to haunt you 😆 mind you it’s 10 wins in 17 games for Argentina against Scotland so you have the numbers on your side. If get a chance and want take a look at highlights I posted on the Scotland team thread of Scotland big win in 1990, some super play there and flanker Jeffreys was all over the place
162 @ Victoriabok:
None of the old Drive In’s exist today… not Lynnwood Drive In, Wonderboom Drive In, Fonteine Drive In, Menlopark Drive In (and I’m not talking about the one on Menlyn’s roof) or any of the others.
Must make a plan one day, haul out my old Drive In speakers (which we forgot to take off the doors), connect them somewhere to get crappy Drive In sound going… and get a movie called Green Ice… went to see it 4 times at the Drive In… and have not seen it till today… too busy with other stuff… hahaha!
@ Bullscot:
It’s difficult to predict, have no idea how Scotland will go….if Argentina play like they did in some of the RC games they might just be up for the win.
Then again, they might be playing their second stringers and if that is the case then Scotland should get an easy win.
Them and France are the most difficult sides to predict, they can easily throw a game away that one feels they should win, and vice versa
Bullscot wrote:
Long before Super rugby we used to have no rugby in summer
They introduced an annual game at Loftus, I think it was in February, Northern Transvaal vs the SA Defence Force
At that time everyone had to go to the Army, so their team was brimming with Springboks like Uli Scmidt and Carel du Plessis
In the 90’s it became Northern Transvaal against an invitational team
For Naas Botha’s final game they invited a few international players for the invitational team, the fullback was Gavin Hastings
I’ve never seen anyone kick so accurate and so far on the Highveld
grootblousmile wrote:
I’ll try again
1980 Mazda RX2
120 000
Green with faded vinyl roof
Engine running well
Worn Dunlop SP99 tyres
Interior good with faint fishy smell
Back seat worn out
R1950 or swop for Ohlssons Lager of similar value
grootblousmile wrote:
Before the EFF there was GBS 😀
167 @ Victoriabok:
If I remember correctly it was a 1974 or 1975 Mazda RX 2.. hehehe
The rest all sounds exactly like it.
Must say, the back seats held well, considering… hahaha
Fark, I remember Ohlssons Beer… drink some Castles, Amstels or some Lion Lager and you would pee Ohlssons all night… hehehe
Jeeez, also remember drinking Vincoco & Coke… horrible stuff, but it was cheap and got the buzz going! Would fart Coconut farts for 3 days afterwards… hehehe
168 @ MacroBok:
Malema and the EFF are pissies copared to what we came up with!
grootblousmile wrote:
It’s a shame they stopped making Lion Lager
I remember Vincoco, sies,
The smell reminded me of suntan lotion, I still remember the hangovers
171 @ Victoriabok:
How old are you Vicky Victoria?
Seems we could have drank at the same venues and gone past one another at times, not knowing the other existed, but doing much the same stuff.
Remember the Keg & Tankard… think it was in the SALU Building basement… flok ons het die tafels bedans daar hoor!
While you fellows are talking about old cars, you still needed some juice to get around.
Thought this would be appropriate…..
Attachment:
grootblousmile wrote:
Pasop net dat jy nie op autopilot gaan as die fliek begin en jou vrou gryp nie
Op ons ouderdom verrek jy maklik iets op die agtersitplek
174 @ Victoriabok:
Hahaha, AUTOPILOT…
Damn, dit was omtrent so iets!
Jinne, die kak en hare wat ons nie by Nkwe (Oos van Pretoria by Tierpoort) aangevang het nie… en die kere wat ons dronk soos torre rondgeskuiwe was deur koshuisgangers in Maroela Koshuis, terwyl die Koshuisvader (Oud Springbok slot John Williams) die gange vol gesoek het vir dronk studente in sy koshuis. Jinne ons was nie eers koshuisstudente nie, maar wel dagstudente!
grootblousmile wrote:
47
Was dit nie die Pig and Whistle nie?
Hulle het ‘n Miss Wet T-Shirt kompetisie gehad on Dinsdag on Donderdag aande as ek reg onthou
176 @ Victoriabok:
Kon seker later die Pig & Whistle geword het…
Was jy op skool in Pretoorsdorp ook gewees of net in die Weermag?
grootblousmile wrote:
Ek was in FH Odendaal, het vir Joost ontgroen toe ek ‘n matriek was
Ek en Nortie was omtrent dieselfde tyd in die Polisiekollege in Pretoria Wes
@ grootblousmile:
Jammer as ek lank vat om te antwoord, dis besig hier vanoggend
Het darem tyd gehad om ‘n vinige foto te neem
Attachment:
178 @ Victoriabok:
O, OK, FH Odendaal (ons het julle FL Odendaal of kondoompies genoem) in die Moot.
Ek was op Menlopark.
179 @ Victoriabok:
Lyk nat en koellerig daar by jou!
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