Ken Borland

A top-class Springbok halfback pairing and a debut for Ruan Vermaak were the highlights of the Bulls Currie Cup team announced on Thursday as they prepare for what they expect to be a very tough challenge from the Pumas at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

Morne Steyn and Embrose Papier will start at flyhalf and scrumhalf respectively, while lock Vermaak, fresh from completing his stint with the Red Hurricanes in Japan, will add some beef against what will be a very combative Pumas pack.

Loosehead prop Lizo Gqoboka, who led from the front in the exciting win against a URC-strength Lions side, will once again captain the Bulls and he is expecting another fierce battle up front. Especially since the Pumas are eagerly trying to break into a semi-final place inside the top-four.

“The Pumas are known for their fight, they will play till the end. They will bring a lot of physicality and will be very desperate. We’re also hungry and we’re not in a position to underestimate anyone,” Gqoboka, still sporting a bruise to his cheek and a bloodshot eye from the Lions game, said.

“You can see we’re not taking anything for granted from the team we have picked, we really want that home final. The fact that players have to double up in the URC shows we really want to keep the Currie Cup.

“We are very serious about it, we are number one on the log at the moment, but we still have two more games.

“It’s quite special to be in this position in both competitions, and it speaks to the strategy of backing the players. This union really supports good depth, quality and competition within the squad,” Gqoboka said.

With the URC quarterfinals now upon them and the Currie Cup in a similar knockout phase if the Bulls want to top the log and earn the right to host the final, the defending champions are now focusing on trying to put together that perfect 80-minute game. In their last two matches, against the Lions and Griquas, the Bulls have allowed their opposition back into the game in the second half.

“We’re working the whole time on an 80-minute-plus performance,” coach Gert Smal said on Thursday. “Especially later in the game, it’s important to have things in place and the guys that come on must pick it up.

“As a player and as a team, it’s firstly about discipline, not conceding unnecessary yellow cards. We’ve been working hard on putting together a good second half. We’re going to need that perfect game now against some very good teams,” Smal said.

Bulls team:James Verity-Amm, David Kriel, Stedman Gans, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Richard Kriel, Morne Steyn, Embrose Papier; Muller Uys, Reinhardt Ludwig, WJ Steenkamp, Janko Swanepoel, Ruan Vermaak, Robert Hunt, Bismarck du Plessis, Lizo Gqoboka (CAPT). IMPACT-Sidney Tobias, Simphiwe Matanzima, Francois Kloppers, Raynard Roets, Stephan Smit, Keagan Johannes, Juan Mostert, Tharquinn Manuel.

Saturday’s games: Griquas v Free State (Kimberley, 2.30pm); Golden Lions v Western Province (Johannesburg, 5pm).

The success of the alignment camps and the likelihood that there will not be any Covid bubbles to negotiate means Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber is in no rush to name his squad for the incoming series against Wales in July and will wait until the URC plays itself out.

Nienaber, speaking at SA Rugby’s announcement of a three-year initiative with Betway called Next Phase, which will develop the women’s game through growing coaching capacity, said his squad has not even been chosen yet. Wales announced their touring group on May 18.

“I’ll announce the squad only after the players have completed their commitments with their franchises,” Nienaber said in Rosebank on Thursday. “They don’t need to hear from the national coach now, just their franchise coaches.

“We haven’t yet had our selection meeting, although there is a certain group that we are looking at. We know who we’re looking at, we’ve had alignment camps, but we’ll let the teams play their URC playoffs first.

“The Welsh teams are already all out of the URC, so Wales can already be in camp, but it’s going to be more staggered for us, with players joining us as their teams fall out. The overseas players are in the same position.

“Last year it was very tough to plan, almost impossible, you’d have 10 different scenarios and see what pans out. This year looks like normal and hopefully there won’t be any bubbles to contend with,” Nienaber said.

While only a handful of players from the UK tour last November will be nervous about the beul’s axe hanging over their heads, Nienaber said he was heartened by the performances of the South African teams in the United Rugby Championship.

“I was encouraged by all four teams, all of them have played excellent rugby. Even the Lions did well with their comeback, they had a great winning streak here.”

Nienaber, who helped out with the coaching of the Springbok women’s team in 2014/15, said Next Phase came from an epiphany that their approach was wrong back then.

“Women’s rugby is on another development level and we probably made a mistake trying to foist a men’s programme on them back in 2014/15. The basics are not necessarily there with the girls because they start playing so late.

“You need to build the basics and then put the next layer in, which is adding the creative plans. I became a better coach through my involvement with them,” Nienaber said.

The timing of the serious knee injury suffered by Bulls flyhalf Johan Goosen was so frustrating that it would be little wonder if Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber was pulling the hair out of the top of his head. If he had any there of course.

The 29-year-old Goosen has played 13 Tests for the Springboks, the last in 2016, and he said on Wednesday that he is hopeful of getting back there. Since being encouraged back into rugby at the Bulls, his exceptional displays last year saw him set to return to the international fold, before he tore his ACL ligament last October. But he is clearly in Nienaber’s long-term 2023 World Cup plans.

“The rehab is going well but I still have two-to-three months to go before I can get on the pitch and train again,” Goosen, who was walking unaided, said at a Castle Lager media launch in Tembisa on Wednesday.

“It’s been tough mentally and I had to have a second surgery about two months ago because something was loose in the knee, so that was the 11^th operation of my career, so I’m used to it.

“Coming back to South Africa, I played well enough that I really thought I had a chance at the Springboks, so I was sad to get injured. But Jacques Nienaber did phone me and ask if I still wanted to play for the Boks.

“I’ve been at the two alignment camps this year and from being a little boy, I just wanted to play in a World Cup. In 2015, Heyneke Meyer said I was going and then didn’t pick me, and in 2019 I had stuff going on off the field,” Goosen said, referring to his controversial retirement from the game.

It really does seem like the experienced flyhalf’s deepest desire is indeed to return to the Springbok squad for next year’s World Cup and, if all goes well and he is back playing in September, then there is plenty of time to earn his recall. There may not be any Currie Cup for him to use to ease back into action though, and it will be straight back into Europe for the former France-based player.

“My new goal is to work really hard and make the World Cup squad. I’m targeting a return in the United Rugby Championship, and hopefully I will just miss the first two or three matches.

“It’s going to be tough in Europe next season because there’s the Champions Cup as well. I played in the Challenge Cup final and even that is a level up from the URC,” Goosen said.

Batsmen in the current IPL have bravely gone where no batters have gone before in hitting more than one-thousand sixes in the current competition, and Proteas captain Temba Bavuma is hoping his batsmen can play with similar freedom when South Africa play a T20 series in India next month.

The one-thousand sixes barrier was broken for the first time in the IPL in the final league stage match of 2022 on May 22, the previous most maximums in a season being the 872 scored in 2018.

“I’ve really enjoyed being off from cricket for the last four weeks, so I have not watched all the IPL, but the one thing I have seen is that there have been a lot more sixes hit – more than a thousand,” Bavuma said at a Castle Lager launch in Tembisa on Wednesday.

“As a bowler, you’re probably scared to see that, but you’re smiling as a batsman. It means our bowlers will need to be a lot smarter, but for the batsmen, the pitches are good.

“Our batsmen can really go out and express themselves. Our game doesn’t need to change too much, but to have power-hitters like David Miller and Tristan Stubbs teaming up together in the middle would be incredible.

“They could be a potent partnership. David smashed the lights out yesterday to get Gujarat Titans in the final, Quinton de Kock bashed it around the other night and Kagiso Rabada has been brilliant as well,” Bavuma said.

While Stubbs will be fighting with the likes of Heinrich Klaasen and Reeza Hendricks for the one batting spot that could be open, Bavuma is backing the 21-year-old to make his mark on his first call-up to the Proteas squad.

“It’s nice to see young new faces in the team and we’ve been on the receiving end of Tristan’s batting a number of times at the Lions. We’ll try to make the environment as comfortable as we can for him.

“He’s a young guy so he also has the opportunity to learn a lot from the older guys in the team. He’ll have guys around him to make his transition to international cricket as smooth as possible.

“Hopefully he can soak it all in because international cricket is different to the IPL or domestic T20. Hopefully he can really take his career forward.

“We have a couple of guys in really good form from the IPL, but we expect it to be a tough series. India are always very competitive and we’ve seen some of their guys have a very good IPL as well,” Bavuma said.