Ken Borland

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.

–

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.

It was a scintillating Saturday for left wing Seabelo Senatla at Loftus Versfeld as he scored a magnificent try and set up a brilliant second one as Western Province beat the Blue Bulls 23-18 in an entertaining Absa Currie Cup match.

Western Province bided their time, defending superbly as the Bulls dominated territory for long periods, and when they struck it was potent and clinical.

While the Bulls’ attack was mostly narrow, their forwards driving and mauling the ball up ad infinitum, Western Province kept their width and weren’t afraid to use it.

And the Bulls erred enough times while on attack to provide the visitors with counter-attacking opportunities. One of those was on the hour mark when wing Sampie Mastriet coughed up possession and Western Province fullback Cheslin Kolbe ran the turnover ball across the field and linked up with Senatla, who was holding position out wide on the 22m line.

Senatla had space, which is a recipe for disaster when defending against the Sevens star, and he embarked on a dazzling 80m run that saw him ignominiously burn William Small-Smith on the outside, before dancing infield and then bursting through Jesse Kriel’s tackle to score a try that will be remembered for many a day.

That brilliant try came just three minutes after Western Province had scored their first try, which was also a superb effort and possibly even more thrilling for the coaching staff because it came off a set-piece move.

From a lineout, flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis looped with eighthman Nizaam Carr and inside centre Jaco Taute then gave a super inside ball to Senatla, who came flying up from the left wing. The 21-year-old showed his wonderful feet as he danced through the gap and then fed the ball out wide to Kobus van Wyk, who had done well to keep his width, and finished with great pace himself.

Although Senatla was helped off the field soon afterwards after twisting his ankle, the injury is apparently not a major one and certainly not season-ending.

Catrakilis converted both tries and suddenly Western Province were 20-10 up when just five minutes earlier it had looked to be the Bulls’ day as they led 10-6 after a penalty by replacement flyhalf Tian Schoeman rewarded an excellent scrum by the home side.

“To play like that and to lose can make your mind go,” Bulls coach Frans Ludeke lamented after the match. “Credit to the players for a huge improvement and there were a lot of positives from that game. But we just lost momentum in the second half at crucial times, we didn’t exit well enough and there were soft moments.”

“I’m really very happy to beat a desperate Bulls side which showed a big improvement tonight, at altitude. It’s their first loss at Loftus Versfeld this year and if they’d played like that before they would have had many more points on the log. We made mistakes but it takes a tight team to pull through here,” Western Province coach Allister Coetzee said.

“Our defence is a non-negotiable, but we’ve also got the players to turn defence into attack. The outside backs were really switched on to that tonight and the half-backs also play a big role in that. We have strength, speed, guile and power in our backline and it’s a good combination.

“There’s a good balance to our play, it doesn’t depend on where we are on the field of play either, and we’re devastating at the moment from broken play,” the former Springbok assistant coach said.

The opening points of the match only came after 34 minutes of intriguing ball-in-hand action and massive defence by both sides.

A good kick by Kurt Coleman, on while Catrakilis was in the blood bin, forced the Bulls to concede a lineout just outside their 22 and the Western Province rolling maul earned the substitute flyhalf a penalty shot at goal.

Bulls flyhalf Joshua Stander  missed an easy penalty just a minute later and, after playing their best rugby of the campaign in the first half, dominating territory but hardly kicking, and pounding the advantage line, the home side would have been disappointed to have gone into the break scoreless.

Catrakilis landed a second penalty for Western Province five minutes into the second half – it came after a period of Bulls-like driving and mauling by the visitors – but it took just three more minutes for the hosts to score their first points, through a great try by storming flank Jacques du Plessis.

The Bulls were defending a lineout 30 metres from their line after a poor clearance by Kriel, but when Western Province threw over the top and eighthman Jono Ross won the ball, they again refused to just kick possession away. Instead Ross ran and found mobile lock Grant Hattingh, who burst clear into space. Mastriet then dashed down the right wing before the ball went back inside and Du Plessis charged over for an impressive try.

Stander converted and then his replacement Schoeman kicked a penalty to put the Bulls 10-6 up.

“We wanted to keep the pace and tempo of the game up, get numbers to the ball, and it was just our final passes that let us down,” Ludeke said. “We were really attacking the gainline and slowly but surely getting somewhere, but then we would give them broken field play and that’s where their tries came from. We need to look after the ball better, but I thought we had the better of them in the scrums and our lineouts were good.”

But then Senatla showed his extraordinary finishing talents to put Western Province firmly in control.

The Bulls held on to the ball well for the next 10 minutes to earn another penalty for Schoeman, but Dean Greyling’s high tackle on Kolbe gave Coleman the opportunity to restore a 10-point lead (23-13) just four minutes later.

The Bulls hammered away at close quarters in the final minutes and belatedly got quick ball out wide to Mastriet, who powered through two tackles from 20 metres out to score.

Schoeman missed the touchline conversion and the Bulls were unable to breach the phenomenal Western Province defence again before the final hooter sounded.

“We need the same effort but with more accuracy,” Ludeke concluded.

For Coetzee, Western Province’s fourth successive win not only stretches their lead at the top of the log to three points but could also be a watershed moment in their Currie Cup campaign.

“There’s a complete integration in our play and we need to keep going, be driven by our own standards and run our own race. Winning makes that easier and I must compliment the leadership for getting four points under these conditions: against a very desperate Bulls side at altitude,” Coetzee said.

Victor Matfield said on Friday that the Sharks front row of Tendai Mtawarira, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis is a top-class unit and their struggles in the Springbok scrums against Argentina last weekend was just a case of a bad day at the office.

The Springboks were given a torrid time in the scrums by a fearsome Argentinian unit and, although that set-piece has been a focus of the team this week, Matfield said he expected a much-improved performance next weekend against Australia in Perth.

“It’s just one game that our scrum wasn’t good enough. But they are all fantastic players, the Sharks have had the best front row and they were all brilliant for the Springboks last year. I’m sure they will bounce back.

“The set-piece is a very important part of the game and the only way to fix it is out on the training field. We’ve looked at the video and we’ve been scrumming yesterday and today and will also be scrumming tomorrow,” Matfield said on Friday after the Springboks returned from a lengthy training session that went on for half-an-hour longer than expected.

“The guys there were outstanding the whole of last year so we know what they can do. It’s just one or two technical things that need to get sorted. I think there’s been an uproar because we’re so proud of our scrums and we’re certainly not happy with the way we scrummed last weekend. But I’m sure it will be fine next weekend.”

There is a tendency in rugby for teams to work incredibly hard on where their weaknesses have been exposed the previous week, to the detriment of what have been strengths before and sides are often surprised in another department, having fixed a problem area.

Fortunately the Springboks know that their lineout was no great shakes last weekend either, and the return of the masterful Matfield has seen them also put in a lot of work in that department.

“Our set-piece must work, that’s the bottom line, we have to secure our own ball and put pressure on their’s. We’ll have to wait and see who the coach picks and whether we’ll have five jumpers or four, but we also have to wait and see who Australia pick.

“James Horwill is a very experienced lock but he hasn’t been playing, while Rob Simmons has been there for a while. We also have to see which loose forwards they choose … ” Matfield said.

If there was a university of rugby, Matfield would have several Masters degrees and the veteran lock pointed out that the Springboks must not be distracted by all the rave reviews the All Blacks are receiving for upping the tempo of their game another notch in thrashing Australia 51-20 at Eden Park.

“First of all we have to focus on Australia and people musn’t forget that the same team that played in Auckland drew with the Mighty All Blacks two weeks ago on home soil. Plus the Waratahs won SuperRugby, so they’ll still be pretty confident and very competitive.

“We have to play to our strengths and control the pace of the game. We must make it quicker when we want it faster but also be able to slow it down and make it more of a set-piece battle. Rugby is all about who controls the pace of the game,” Matfield said.

Matfield’s long-time Bulls team-mate Morne Steyn has a crucial role in this regard and is expected to be back in the number 10 jersey for the match against the Wallabies in Perth.

“I don’t think the number 10 jersey is necessarily mine, every day I have to work hard and I can’t relax with the young guys coming through, but as the link between the backs and forwards, it’s mostly up to the scrumhalf and me to control the pace of the game. We want to set the pace,” Steyn said.

The Stade Francais player said he felt Handre Pollard had had two solid outings in the flyhalf position.

“It’s not always nice being on the bench, but I thought Handre did great. I do sit down and talk to him about small things, obviously I’m not coaching him but a young guy like that can always learn little things and wherever I can help, I do,” Steyn said.

Even a player of Steyn’s experience – the 30-year-old earned his 58th cap against Argentina – found it a daunting experience to twice be thrown into the deep end off the bench and steer the Springboks to victory against the rampant Pumas and he admitted he was looking forward to the pack getting into gear.

“I think the forwards will scrum better and go forward next weekend,” Steyn said while casting a knowing smile in Matfield’s direction. “In Salta we needed more momentum and we needed to get back on the front foot, which makes it much easier for the backline. I hope it will be much better in Australia, but we saw last year what we can do overseas and we have the confidence to do well over there.”

Lest we forget, the last time the Springboks were in Australia, they pounded the Wallabies 38-12 in Brisbane and that was with a weaker backline and no Matfield.