Ken Borland

Finishing his career on a high at the World Cup and having another chance to work with coach Heyneke Meyer were the main reasons Victor Matfield returned to rugby last year after retiring in 2011.

And even the skeptics were won over as Matfield enjoyed a fine season, his excellent form for the Bulls in SuperRugby winning him a return to the Springbok side.

And when the likes of Pieter-Steph du Toit and Flip van der Merwe were injured, the Springboks were reliant on the veteran number five lock to run their lineout, which he did with aplomb.

“There were a lot of challenges last year and it was a big decision to make to play again, it wasn’t easy and I was a bit nervous. But I’m pretty happy with my personal performance.

“Some of the other contenders were injured so it made it a bit easier for me, it opened up a gap for me,” Matfield said.

Having retired at the last World Cup and begun moving into his coaching career at the Bulls, it was Springbok coach Meyer, who coached the Bulls from 2000-2007, who told Matfield he believed he could still feature at this year’s global showpiece, even though he will be 38 when the tournament begins.

“Heyneke told me that if I was at my best, then he knew I would be good enough for another World Cup. But he said I had to play well in SuperRugby. He asked me to come back and knowing I had his backing was a big help in pushing myself.

“It’s one of the big things that motivates me, a new opportunity to work with Heyneke at the Springboks. We were able to build something very special at the Bulls and I was really keen to play with players like Fourie du Preez again, and also guys like Schalk Burger and Jean de Villiers, under Heyneke. And it’s been really successful having all of us back together at the Boks,” Matfield said.

The challenge of getting used to the intense physicality required when playing in the pack in top-class rugby was the first thing Matfield had to deal with, and thereafter it was a mental adjustment.

“It was all about the mindset in the end. When you’re 21, rugby is everything. But when you reach my age, then your marriage and your kids are also very important. But you have to decide to give rugby everything, which is a big decision.

“But with the backing of my family, rugby has become number one again. My wife Monja knows that if I put my mind to something then I am very disciplined about it,” Matfield said.

Matfield was allowed to take it relatively easy in the pre-season by Bulls coach Frans Ludeke but the veteran has played all 240 minutes of their first three SuperRugby games.

“Last year I thought that I was only going to play five or six games, but I ended up playing all of them. And now this year we lost our first two games at home, so the pressure is on again.

“I still hope to get managed in terms of game time because it’s important for your recovery. My fitness is there, but after five or six games it takes longer to recover from the knocks and be ready for the next game at my age,” South Africa’s most-capped player said.

Matfield is confident that Meyer will preside over a successful World Cup campaign, and with De Villiers recovering from knee surgery, the former Toulon lock might well be captain.

“My last year before retiring was 2011 and that was a bad year, with a very disappointing World Cup. Heyneke believes I can win another World Cup this year and there are very talented players in South Africa at the moment.

“Heyneke is pushing for us all to be kept fresh through SuperRugby, so hopefully there aren’t too many injuries. If we want to win, then we need all our best players there,” Matfield said.

Matfield has precious experience and his lineout skills are still invaluable. It may seem preposterous, but one of the Springboks best players in the 2015 World Cup could well be Matfield, as it was in Paris in 2007.

“The coach told me from the beginning that I was in his plans and I knew where I stood, so it wasn’t a total surprise,” debutant scrumhalf Rudy Paige said of his inclusion in the Springboks’ World Cup squad despite not featuring at all in the Rugby Championship.

Paige was chosen as one of three scrumhalves along with veterans Fourie du Preez and Ruan Pienaar, and seemingly leapfrogged Cobus Reinach, who was Pienaar’s understudy throughout the Rugby Championship.

But in a dismal tournament for the Springboks, Reinach’s decision-making was often exposed, most notably against the All Blacks when he took a free kick from the wrong place and had his try disallowed, lost possession by going on a solo attack, and also spread the ball wide when the gap had opened up for him to go through.

“The Bulls had an indifferent season, but I felt my energy and consistency were still good and I wanted to take that to the Springbok squad. Obviously I had to lift it at the Springboks and I was very happy just to observe Fourie du Preez at training, how he goes about things. He’s probably still the best scrumhalf in the world and I was learning every day,” Paige said.

The 26-year-old enjoyed an outstanding Super Rugby campaign and is an efficient, quick passer of the ball as well as having an immaculate kicking game.

“Cobus Reinach was injured for a lot of Super Rugby and I tried to give him game time but he never quite recaptured his form. Rudy provides really good service and he’s more or less like Fourie du Preez as a player. He has an unbelievable kicking game in the wet and great service, and unfortunately he got injured on the end-of-year tour,” coach Heyneke Meyer said when explaining his selection.

As for allowing a situation where Paige will go to the World Cup without having played any Test rugby, Meyer defended his management of the new cap.

“I wanted to play him in Buenos Aires, but the guys who let the country down in Durban had to go and fix it. Even the Australian squad has guys who haven’t played at all and I don’t think playing one Test will make that much difference,” Meyer said.

“That end-of-year tour opened my eyes to what I’m capable of and it made me hungry to be part of the Springbok team, I saw what the blazer means to them. I want to be part of that for most of my career and I need to improve my defence and adapt to international rugby as quickly as possible. My quick service and my kicking game are the things I back myself on,” Paige, the son of a delighted Congregational Church priest in Oudtshoorn, said.

Springbok rugby coach Heyneke Meyer announced a World Cup squad heavy with experience and his trusted lieutenants, admitting that he was “hoping” many of the walking wounded would be fit for their opening game against Japan in Brighton on September 19.

Meyer has chosen nine members of the victorious 2007 World Cup squad in Schalk Burger, 2015 captain Jean de Villiers, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana, Victor Matfield, Ruan Pienaar and JP Pietersen, while players such as Willem Alberts, Zane Kirchner, Tendai Mtawariria and Morne Steyn have been stalwarts of his four-year term.

But a massive injury cloud hangs over the Springboks with De Villiers, key eighthman Duane Vermeulen, Jannie du Plessis, Du Preez, Willie le Roux, Francois Louw and Coenie Oosthuizen all having their build-up to the World Cup disrupted by injuries.

“The medical advice is that they are 100% confident that all 31 players will be fit for the first game and I’m hoping that will be the case. It is a worry to be honest, but certain players are warriors and they’re like charcoal that becomes diamonds under pressure.

“I know what a guy like Fourie du Preez can do, we’ve been training against Namibia, we’ve been having semi-opposed contact and I can see how ready they are in training. We’ll have four pool games at the World Cup to blend guys in and players like Flo and Duane are in the best form I’ve ever seen them in. Guys like that just need 30 minutes on the field and they’re back in the game,” Meyer said at the squad announcement at the team’s Umhlanga Rocks hotel on Friday night.

Meyer admitted that the last week had been a highly emotional one with players like flank Marcel Coetzee, who is 50/50 to be fit in time for the first game, and scrumhalf Cobus Reinach the unluckiest players to miss out on the squad.

“I started coaching because I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, to make dreams come true. But these have been some of my most emotional days, it has felt like life and death. All the guys have put their bodies on the line and every single guy is good enough to play in a World Cup final.

“But I saw every player in a one-on-one and many of them burst into tears when I told them they had been selected and the same for those guys who I had to tell that they had not been selected,” Meyer said.

Scrumhalf Rudi Paige is the only uncapped member of the squad, although he was selected for the 2014 end-of-year tour before getting injured.

The average age of the squad is just over 26.

There was more relief than elation for Cell C Sharks coach Gary Gold after his team bounced back from an opening loss to secure an impressive bonus-point win over the Emirates Lions  in their weekend SuperRugby match at Kings Park.

“I think relief is the word, it’s certainly not a big celebration. It’s such early days now, you can throw all these cliches around and say you move on from a loss like last week. But you don’t really move on from a loss like that. It was disappointing and really it was our own fault.

“We didn’t perform well enough last week, so it was weighing heavily on our minds. That’s the psychological challenge you have as a coach, it’s hopefully to give the players confidence that they’re good enough and they can come back from something like that,” Gold said after the Sharks’ 29-12 triumph.

The scrum was the outstanding facet of play for the Sharks, with the Du Plessis brothers, Jannie and Bismarck, showing their class and being ably assisted by loosehead Dale Chadwick as the highly-rated Lions set-piece was dismantled.

Lions coach Johan Ackermann pinpointed Bismarck du Plessis’ return at hooker for the dramatic improvement in the Sharks scrum.

“Bismarck made the big difference there,” said Ackermann. “He outsmarted our young front row and was exceptional. Those scrum penalties against us were very disappointing, we are far better than that, but credit must go to the Sharks.”

For the Sharks to score four tries in sodden conditions that almost saw the game postponed was also highly impressive and Gold admitted it was far more than he had hoped for.

“I didn’t ever imagine we would score four tries in those conditions, but I’m very grateful it did end up that way. I thought we managed the game well to be able to keep the momentum that got us to those opportunities that led to the tries.

“I was happy with the urgency and the general play all round. So I’m very proud of the performance,” Gold said.

The former Springbok forwards coach also praised Bismarck du Plessis for his display, especially since his shoulder is still troubling him.

“His presence was a factor, there’s no doubt about it, because we know what a world-class player he is for so many reasons. He threw into the lineouts particularly well today, he led the team well and obviously he stabilised our scrum,” Gold said.

Other high points for the Sharks were the burgeoning relationship between halfbacks Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach, which looked a marriage made in heaven in conditions in which their tactical play was always going to be vital.

Lambie made liberal use of the crosskick to set up two of the Sharks’ tries, while opposite number Marnitz Boshoff failed to adapt his game-plan to the wet conditions, and the superb displays of the Du Plessis brothers, lock Pieter-Steph du Toit, Reinach and Lambie are surely not going to go unnoticed by Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer with the World Cup in the northern hemisphere later this year.