End Of Year Tours
Experienced Springbok tighthead prop Jannie du Plessis has been ruled out of the forthcoming Castle Lager Outgoing Tour to Wales, Scotland and France because of injury.
His place in the touring team will be taken by the uncapped GWK Griquas prop Lourens Adriaanse, a member of the Springbok squad during the Castle Lager Rugby Championship who was on the official standby list and will play with Du Plessis for The Sharks next season.
The All Blacks have named four uncapped players in their matchday squad for the historic Test at Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium in Tokyo on Saturday
The starting XV sees bustling Counties-Manukau and Blues wing Frank Halai selected in an All Blacks side for the first time, with massive Crusaders and Canterbury lock Dominic Bird also making his debut.
Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett has backed current coach Heyneke Meyer NOT to rest his key players on the end of year tour, despite the risk of player burn-out.
Speaking to BallzRadio, Mallett said that the Springbok Tests should take precedence over the Currie Cup and Super Rugby, and said franchise coaches should take responsibility for managing players better. Mallett also praised Sharks Director of Rugby Brendan Venter as one of the few coaches using proper player rotation.
England lock Geoff Parling has been ruled out of Saturday’s opening November international against Australia at Twickenham with concussion.
Parling was concussed during a training session at England’s training base in Bagshot, south-west of London, on Tuesday and will now follow the standard procedure for players who’ve suffered head injuries.
Captain Sergio Parisse and popular prop Martin Castrogiovanni are closing in on a century of caps after the Argentine-born pair were named in Italy coach Jacques Brunel’s 30-man squad for next month’s international tests.
Both Stade Francais No 8 Parisse and Toulon’s Castrogiovanni have 98 caps and could surpass the century landmark during tests against Australia, Argentina and Fiji in November.
Siyabonga “Scarra” Ntubeni is one of four uncapped players who will join three stalwarts of the Rugby World Cup winning squad of 2007, JP Pietersen, Jaque Fourie and Bakkies Botha, in 32-man Springbok squad for the forthcoming Castle Lager Outgoing Tour to Wales, Scotland and France.
It will be Botha and Fourie’s first involvement with the Springboks since the previous Rugby World Cup, in 2011 in New Zealand, while Pietersen is back in the squad for the first time this year.
Scotland wing Tim Visser will be sidelined for up to four months after breaking his shin and damaging ankle ligaments in a club game.
Argentina will be without their captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe on their upcoming European tour after he injured himself playing for Toulon.
France and Toulouse No 8 Louis Picamoles has been ruled out of a French training camp due to heavy bruising – but is relieved not to have suffered a recurrence of a hip injury.
England prop Alex Corbisiero has been ruled out of his side’s opening November Test against Australia at Twickenham on Saturday.
Corbisiero twisted his left knee playing for club side Northampton just over a fortnight ago and won’t be fit to face the Wallabies.
Derek Asbun, a member of the University of Cape Town Varsity Cup squad, will feature on the American national team roster for their year-end Test matches.
A familiar question hangs in the air ahead of the start of this year’s November internationals – who can defeat New Zealand?
The world champions have been in especially scintillating form of late, winning all six of their matches in the southern hemisphere rugby championship.
Sharks centre Francois Steyn is set to undergo minor surgery that will rule him out of action for at least three weeks.
Steyn, 26, underwent surgery in May this year after he injured his leg playing for the Sharks against the Highlanders in the Super Rugby competition.
At the weekend they were fierce rivals, but very soon they will team up to don the Green and Gold of South Africa.
This is the verdict on two of the most talented young second row forwards in the world, who were in opposing camps when the Sharks became Currie Cup champions with a 33-19 win over Western Province at Newlands.
Kieran Low is not one to beat about the bush. The 22-year-old was born in the south of England and grew up in Chichester with a Welsh-born father and mother who hails from Scunthorpe, but if he is handed an opportunity to stride out on to Murrayfield this autumn, one that he never grew up dreaming of, it will be the highlight of his life so far.
This weekend saw the conclusion of the ABSA Currie Cup, with The Sharks upsetting overwhelming favourites, before the game, DHL Western Province, by playing the better tactical game and winning by a handsome 33 / 19. This leaves us with the International window opening again and all Southern Hemisphere sides getting ready to travel north, for the End Of Year Tours.
It would however not be fitting to move our attention over to the Internationals, without paying tribute to those domestic stars, who performed out of their skins for their respective Unions in the Currie Cup. For this purpose and although the Springboks took part in the latter rounds of the Currie Cup, we decided to compose 2 Player-by-player sides of the best candidates in their positions, but purposely excluding the players of the Springbok group from the equasion.
Chief writers, Rudi Geldenhuys and Timothy Bornman takes a look at these players… and it appears that in most positions the same logic applies, however there are certain positions where we differ on exactly who performed best. We chose not to pick players out of position but rather to choose players in the positions they regularly played during the Competition.
The End Of Year Tours (Autumn Internationals) starts this coming weekend and this week we should see a lot of news in preparation of these Tours. The New Zealand NPC is over, the South African Currie Cup has a new Champion, now the International stage lights up again!
The New Zealand All Blacks believe Dan Carter will be ready to face Japan and has also sent an S.O.S. call to prop Jeff Toomaga-Allen as cover for Joe Moody who was injured in the NPC Final.
Chris Robshaw has retained the England captaincy for the November internationals, coach Stuart Lancaster announced on Wednesday.
Andrew Trimble has missed out on a place in Ireland’s squad for the November games against Samoa, Australia and New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium. The Ulster wing fails to make Joe Schmidt’s 34-man squad which includes uncapped trio David Kearney, James Coughlan and Jack McGrath.
Argentina named Daniel Hourcade as coach on Tuesday for the Pumas’ tour of Europe and with a view to keeping him on until the 2015 rugby World Cup in England.
Wales coach Warren Gatland has named controversial scrumhalf Mike Phillips in a 35-man squad for next month’s Tests against South Africa, Argentina, Tonga and Australia.
Phillips faced a meeting with Bayonne directors on Tuesday after he allegedly attended a players’ video analysis session at the French club earlier this month while under the influence of alcohol.
Scotland coach Scott Johnson has included five uncapped players in a 41-man training squad announced on Tuesday to prepare for next month’s Tests at home to Japan, South Africa and Australia.
The side will be captained by Wellington and Hurricanes back Tim Bateman and features six former All Blacks and 11 players who played for the Maori All Blacks last year.
The squad departs for North America on Monday 28 October.
Argentina coach Santiago Phelan has announced his resignation with immediate effect, leaving the Pumas looking for a coach for their upcoming European tour.
Western Province’s in-form flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis has earned the ultimate compliment for his ability to dictate play.
No less a personality than Naas Botha, the former Springbok string-puller in the position, suggested at the weekend that the 24-year-old “might have the best tactical kicking game of all (South African) fly-halves”.
There are four new All Blacks in New Zealand’s squad for their year-end tour to Japan and Europe.
Crusaders forwards Joe Moody, Dominic Bird and Luke Whitelock along with Blues wing Frank Halai will all go on their first international tour, although all have spent time within the All Blacks environment this year.
Clermont scrum-half Morgan Parra will miss France’s opening November test against world champions New Zealand after he was handed a four-week ban by the French League on Wednesday.
Parra was punished for having punched Bordeaux-Begles’s Gautier Gibouin several times during a Top 14 league match on September 29.
Record-breaking South Africa wing Bryan Habana is predicting an epic battle when the Springboks take on Wales in Cardiff in November.
The 30-year-old former IRB Player of the Year is looking forward to returning to the Welsh capital next month and believes, following the success of the British and Irish Lions in mid-year, the Welsh side will be more dangerous than ever.
Scotland have revealed that fullback Stuart Hogg will miss this year’s Autumn Internationals (End Of Year Tours) due to an injury.
Tatafu Polota-Nau and Nick Cummins return from injury in the 32-man Wallabies’ squad named on Friday for the five-Test tour next month.
It comprises 26 of the 28 players who toured South Africa and Argentina in the Rugby Championship, with front row forward Albert Anae and wing Peter Betham omitted following the return of Waratahs hooker Polota-Nau (hamstring) and Western Force outside back Cummins (hand).
The IRB has cast its net further in making its appointment to the November Tests, mostly in Europe.
There are several of the tried and tested – Craig Joubert, Jaco Peyper, Nigel Owens, Steve Walsh, Alain Rolland, George Clancy, Jérôme Graces, Romain Poite, Wayne Barnes, for example. There are those finding their feet like Lourens van der Merwe, Glen Jackson, JP Doyle, Pascal Gauzère, Leighton Hodges, Greg Garner, Ian Davies, John Lacey and Francisco Pastrana. Then there are those who are just standing up and taking their first steps – Stuart Berry, Chris Assmus, Mike Fraser, Dudley Phillips, Federico Anselmi, Luke Pearce, Marius Mitrea, Joaquin Montes, Juan Sylvestre and Claudio Antonio.
With the end of year tours just over six weeks away there is some bad news for two of the top centres who would have been looking forward for turning out for their countries against Southern Hemisphere opponents. England’s Manu Tuilagi joins team mate Brad Barritt on the sidelines while Lions and Wales centre Jamie Roberts also looks set to miss out on the action due to injury.
How will Heyneke Meyer fare in 2013?
All credit to New Zealand for not blaming the virus in the team or end-of-year-tiredness for their loss at the hands of a committed England team.
The All Blacks players looked more than a bit pale and lethargic as they entered the field and even the Haka lacked its normal spark.
Punctiliously I don’t however think it was either the virus or tiredness that saw the All Blacks lose this match. It was the England tactics and their good defence that won them the match.
The Southern Hemisphere Rugby season is fast approaching a welcome close for players , administrators and coaching staff, but at the same time some of us are are a bit despondant that we would have to watch cricket & golf as substitute in place of our crazy rugby addiction…. oh and lest we forget those things in and around the house we failed to have time for in the year.
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However, tomorrow and on Saturday there is still the HSBC Sevens World Series Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens, and on Saturday we get our last brief fix of full Test match rugby when England meet the All Blacks and Wales host the Wallabies (pity these two games are on at the same time again) at the End Of Year Tours to the Northern Hemisphere. PLUS of course we get a sprinkling of Northern Hemisphere Club Rugby to view too.
So, what’s in stall for us as far as TV rugby viewing is concerned this weekend?
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Herewith the viewing schedule: