Ken Borland

Xerox Golden Lions coach Johan Ackermann said on Thursday that his team are likely to face a tremendous onslaught from the Vodacom Blue Bulls pack in their Absa Currie Cup Premier Division match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday which is why he has chosen a five-two split between forwards and backs on the bench.

Springbok Sevens cap and former Natal Sharks wing Mark Richards could make his Lions debut off the bench, while centre Howard Mnisi, a recent signing from Griquas, is the only other back on the replacements bench.

Ackermann on Thursday named hooker Armand van der Merwe, prop Jacques van Rooyen, lock Martin Muller, utility forward Willie Britz and loose forward Kwagga Smith as the other five substitutes for Saturday’s local derby.

“The Bulls will obviously bring a big onslaught up front and being able to bring on fresh legs will be in our favour. We’ve got a lot of versatile players in the backs – Andries Coetzee can play scrumhalf and between Mark Richards and Kwagga Smith, because of their time as Sevens Springboks, they can cover from scrumhalf to wing.

“So we’ve been able to choose a specialist lock and Willie Britz covers both lock and flank, so it’s a really good mix. It’s going to be very hard at forward, so we’ve gone with five forwards on the bench to bring fresh legs on. We expect a big physical onslaught, we’re ready for it and if the game becomes loose then Willie can do some damage, he’s shown how he can turn games in the second half,” Ackermann said on Thursday.

The Lions coach said he had also decided to hand the captaincy of the team to Derick Minnie, who returns to the starting line-up at eighthman, because last week’s skipper in the victory over the EP Kings, Lionel Mapoe, is too removed from the action on the wing.

“We saw last week Lionel gets caught out wide and can’t get messages to the referee in time, I explained it to him that he’s too far from the action. That’s why so many captains are up front.

“I rely a lot on the captain to set the tone and Derick has done that before. The one with the armband speaks to the referee and to us [the coaching staff], but I want leadership from the players in general, which is why we have unit leaders for the scrums, lineouts and backs,” Ackermann explained.

Minnie has replaced Britz at eighthman, while the other change sees experienced former Bulls hooker Willie Wepener come into the front row in place of Van der Merwe.

Ackermann said he was pleased to welcome Jaco van der Walt back into the flyhalf position.

“I’m pleased to have Jaco back, we saw a lot of potential in him and it’s good to have him back so we can continue our development of him. He’s a specialist flyhalf so hopefully we’ll have more flow, and he’s kicked well in training.

“There are definitely areas and times when you need to relieve the pressure with a kick and Jaco has a long boot. That’s in our favour and will definitely be a factor if things are not going for us,” Ackermann said.

The other change to the Lions team sees Ruan Combrinck moving from fullback to replace Courtnall Skosan on the wing, with Coetzee moving from flyhalf to fullback.

Team: 15-Andries Coetzee, 14-Lionel Mapoe, 13-Stokkies Hanekom, 12-Alwyn Hollenbach, 11-Ruan Combrinck, 10-Jaco van der Walt, 9-Ross Cronje, 8-Derick Minnie, 7-Warwick Tecklenburg, 6-Jaco Kriel, 5-Franco Mostert, 4-MB Lusaseni, 3-Ruan Dreyer, 2-Willie Wepener, 1-Schalk van der Merwe. Bench – 16-Armand van der Merwe, 17-Jacques van Rooyen, 18-Martin Muller, 19-Willie Britz, 20-Kwagga Smith, 21-Mark Richards, 22-Howard Mnisi.

South Africa’s movement towards becoming a complete team ahead of next year’s World Cup was halted in Pretoria on Saturday, with atrocious conditions throwing up an unexpected stumbling block which saw their pack exposed by Argentina.

In the end, the Springboks scraped home 13-6 in their opening Rugby Championship fixture, but they spent the final minutes desperately defending their line as Argentina went after a late goal to level the scores.

Torrential rain and hail began falling during the anthems and kept up for the first half. Although conditions eased after the break, there was still steady rain throughout and the pitch was sodden. So there was no chance of the expansive style of play the Springboks are trying to develop, and they even struggled to get their more typical forward-dominated driving game going as the Pumas pack presented a brick wall of defiance.

Springbok captain Jean de Villiers, who has grown up in Cape Town, where winter storms blowing up from the Antarctic are common, described the conditions as “probably the worst I have ever played in”.

“The ball was so wet and so difficult to handle, you couldn’t play at all,” he said, before describing a comical situation in which Pumas flyhalf Nicolas Sanchez tried to kick off, but the ball refused to bounce up off the waterlogged surface.

“The All Blacks kick more and we now run the ball more, we wanted to play exciting rugby today, but we have to be able to play this sort of game as well. There will be more games like this, especially at the World Cup, and I’m not totally happy that we didn’t get a better platform up front,” coach Heyneke Meyer said.

“But even an arm-wrestle was difficult in these conditions, it was so wet that you just couldn’t get going. The rain made it a 50/50 game and 70% of Argentina’s team play in Europe and are more used to conditions like that. They have big, strong forwards and they like a slower game, because their tactics are more about contesting for the ball than continuity.”

The Pumas, despite their epic performance, were sad after the game because they saw it as a missed opportunity to register their first ever win over South Africa.

“We have had very few opportunities to win against the Springboks and we think that was one that we let pass. South Africa have a very good line-up and it’s maybe only today that they did not have their top game. So we are not happy, today was an opportunity to beat them,” Argentina coach Daniel Hourcade said.

The Pumas successfully dominated the Springboks in both the scrums and lineouts to deny them any solid first-phase ball, but referee John Lacey often penalised them at the scrums to give the under-pressure home side a reprieve.

“We complicated their lineout and we’ve worked very hard on our scrum and I think you could see that on the pitch. We consider that we were very good at the scrums, but we were penalised,” captain Agustin Creevy said with more than a hint of frustration.

The late withdrawal of Willem Alberts with a hamstring strain was part of the Springboks’ problems as it meant they were forced to play two openside flanks with Marcell Coetzee coming in for the enforcer in the Springbok pack. The wet ball also meant they focused their lineout throws on the front, where Argentina contested superbly.

Man of the match Francois Louw, the Springbok number six, admitted that his team could have adapted better to the conditions.

“We didn’t execute as well as we should have in the scrums and lineouts. It was a bit loose underfoot for the scrums and lineouts are always difficult in those conditions because you simplify your options and that gives them the chance to effectively compete.

“Those conditions require an immediate mindshift, you’ve got to tighten up and kick more, and our execution of that could have been sharper. We want to continue improving towards the World Cup so that we are on top of our game every time, in any place,” Louw said.

French rugby might not have seen the last of Argentine backline star Juan Martin Hernandez, with the 31-year-old confirming this week that he will consider returning to European rugby in 2015.

Hernandez left Racing Metro last month despite still having 11 months remaining on his contract, to head back to Argentina to concentrate on Test duty and their looming entry into SuperRugby.

But their participation in SuperRugby only starts in 2016, so Hernandez will obviously have to find a stop-gap club for 2015.

The presence of Ireland and British Lions flyhalf Jonathan Sexton and the arrival of Springbok Johan Goosen may also have prompted Hernandez’s decision.

“I’m only without a club for the Rugby Championship and the Tests in November and then we will see what happens. 2015 is a new year,” Hernandez said rather cryptically last week.

Hernandez, like so many other Argentinians, came to France to develop his game and he said his time at Racing Metro had done much for his career.

“You try to reach a very good level as a rugby player and the standard is more high in France than in Argentina. It was a big step coming to France but 90% of the players in Argentina develop their game in Europe.

“Racing Metro were a very good, strong team and when I joined them they had just gone into the first division. So I was around for the construction of the team. It was my decision to go, but I think Racing Metro will have a great season to come and maybe they will be European and Top 14 champions,” Hernandez said.

The gifted utility back has played a measly 44 Tests in 10 years and the injury curse that has so afflicted his career struck again this weekend when he withdrew from the Test against the Springboks in Pretoria with a groin injury. Some Argentinian journalists at Loftus Versfeld called Hernandez’s injury problems more mental than physical.

The smart money at the moment is on El Mago joining his former club, Stade Francais, because Hugo Bonneval, a player they relied on heavily at fullback last season, is on the injured list.

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Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has shown a greater willingness than any of his predecessors to pick his players from across the globe and the late call-up of Juan Smith to the Rugby Championship squad brought the number of overseas-based players to eight out of 30.

The team to play Argentina on Saturday in Pretoria includes five of those eight travellers – Bakkies Botha (Toulon), Bryan Habana (Toulon), Francois Louw (Bath), Ruan Pienaar (Ulster) and Morne Steyn (Stade Francais) – and this shows the high regard in which Meyer holds European rugby, and the French league in particular.

Apart from the thorny issue of overseas-based players, the other feature of the current Springbok team that causes the mutters in many South African supporters is the number of veteran players that are still involved.

Ten of the squad have more than 50 caps and Meyer has persisted with 2007 World Cup winners like Botha, Jean de Villiers, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Habana, Pienaar, Gurthro Steenkamp and Smith, while Schalk Burger, Fourie du Preez, Jaque Fourie, Victor Matfield and JP Pietersen are still very much in Meyer’s plans.

The value of experience is a recurring theme amongst the Springbok leadership.

“It’s very exciting to have such good experience and young guys with exceptional talent putting pressure on them for their places. It’s a good balance for us and you see how guys like Handre Pollard and Jan Serfontein played unbelievably well when they started in the incoming Tests,” captain De Villiers said this week.

“We’re in the ideal position to bring youngsters in … look at Lood de Jager playing with Victor Matfield. He knows that he has that experience next to him and that’s why guys like Juan Smith also add value. They’ve been through it all, they can tell the youngsters to ‘do it like this’. It speeds up the process of making inexperienced players experienced,” De Villiers added.

“You can’t buy experience, like we saw when Bakkies came back late last year. Guys like him and Juan are inspirational, they never give up and they’re an example to all of us in how to keep going,” defence coach John McFarland said.

While France as a nation might be going through a bad patch in rugby, there is no doubting the strength of their domestic teams. Performances there clearly carry plenty of weight with Meyer, judging by the number of players, some of them controversial selections, that he has called up from France.

There has also been a concerted effort behind the scenes to improve relationships between the Springboks and the overseas clubs, after the ill-feeling of the Peter de Villiers era.

The channels of communication are considerably more open these days and Springbok manager Ian Schwartz ensures that all clubs with South African players are kept appraised of Meyer’s plans for them.

Toulon were the first to know about Smith’s potential return to the international stage and there seems to be no reason for the mutual love affair between South Africa and the double champions not to continue.

Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal is known to be a massive admirer of South African players and even the coaching skills of Meyer are highly regarded by the 54-year-old businessman. So much so that Boudjellal has approached Meyer a couple of times about coaching Toulon; clearly neither party will ever want to burn the cordial bridges that exist between them.