Ken Borland

Losing 50% of their outstanding World Cup second row quartet would be sheer bad luck for the Springboks, especially with the British and Irish Lions having such brilliant lineout forwards as Alun-Wyn Jones, Maro Itoje and Courtney Lawes in their ranks, but forwards coach Deon Davids is hopeful that RG Snyman and Lood de Jager will still be able to feature against the tourists.

While Franco Mostert and Eben Etzebeth are fit and a great combination, Snyman, apart from the bad burns he suffered in the Munster fire-pit incident, had the misfortune to suffer another knee injury last month just when his rehab from a rupture of his ACL ligament was nearing completion, while De Jager suffered a particularly nasty injury when he broke his tibia in December, also damaging his ankle and knee in the process.

“It’s an ongoing process with RG and Lood, they are busy with rehab, and hopefully they can join us in the next couple of weeks to come. All the overseas players will be here on Sunday and they will have a thorough assessment so we can see where they are exactly medically. We will know then if they will take part.

“Obviously the lineouts are going to be key against the Lions, but it doesn’t only end with the locks, the combination of the loose forwards needs to be added in there too. Wyn-Jones and Itoje are world-class, but Lawes is also a very good lineout athlete. It’s going to be an interesting battle because if we have all our locks available, they have proven their worth at the World Cup,” Davids said from Bloemfontein on Wednesday.

The Springbok forwards coach also confirmed that they were keen on having Duane Vermeulen, currently recovering from ankle surgery, in the camp even if just in an off-field capacity.

That Vermeulen is an inspirational presence can be seen by the Bulls pretty much turning into cows in his absence, and the man of the match in the 2019 World Cup final is certainly a talisman for the Springboks as well.

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber is hopeful that Duane Vermeulen and the Munster fire-pit duo of Damian de Allende and RG Snyman will recover in time from their mishaps and still be able to play in the series against the British and Irish Lions.
Nienaber confirmed on Wednesday that Vermeulen, man of the match in the 2019 World Cup final, underwent ankle surgery on Wednesday and the Springboks will adopt a wait-and-see attitude to their talismanic eighthman.
De Allende and Snyman both suffered burns during a petrol-and-fire accident in Ireland but barring further bad luck, Nienaber said he expects the centre and the lock, who provide the Springboks with much of their grunt, to be fit for the Lions series.
“Duane had an operation today because his ankle injury required surgery. We hope the surgery goes well and the rehab too, and the feedback we got was that he could take anywhere between five and 16 weeks to be ready, depending on the severity of the injury. And the doctor will only know that once he’s opened him up.
“Jesse Kriel actually had a similar injury just before the 2019 World Cup and he made a quick recovery. So we have discussed it and we don’t feel it’s necessary to get someone in for Duane at the moment. It will all depend on Duane’s rehab,” Nienaber said with the Springbok centre sitting alongside him.
While the details of the fire pit issue make it sound like De Allende and Snyman were up to mischief, Nienaber is certainly not about to have kittens over their behaviour.
“Accidents happen, preferably they don’t and it’s not ideal, but this could not have been controlled and it was not due to their negligence. In Ireland, you must understand, it rains more than it does here and when I wanted to have a wood fire over there, when I missed home, I also took a bit of petrol and put it on the wood otherwise the wood is too wet and won’t catch alight.
“Everyone does it over there and unfortunately the fire just ran up the canister, they then dropped it and the fire went on their legs. Fortunately the burns are just superficial and we have plans to get them in the mix, training, as quickly as possible. I’m optimistic they’ll be able to play against Georgia unless there is infection or they are not able to fly back soon,” Nienaber said.

Bulls coach Jake White said on Friday that he is hopeful that the Captain’s Challenge will be used to reverse obvious mistakes in referee’s decisions and not as a “tactical weapon” in this weekend’s Rainbow Cup matches that see the Sharks travel to Pretoria to take on the Currie Cup champions.

The new law trial gives teams one review each to look at either an incident in the build-up to a try or suspected foul play. A successful challenge means the review is retained, but last weekend the Bulls’ match against the Stormers was regularly interrupted by referrals, which almost seemed to have become tit-for-tat between the two teams after Steven Kitshoff used it against his Bulls counterpart Duane Vermeulen in the opening minutes.

“I think the reviews have not been properly thought out and they probably could be used as a tactical weapon. But the feedback I’ve received from Mark Lawrence [SA Rugby referees head] and SA Rugby is that from now on unless the officials are 100% sure watching the replay in real time then they won’t go back on their decision. We can’t go back and look at every single breakdown because you’ll always find something on slow-mo.

“So I think common sense is coming out now. It took two hours, six minutes for our match against the Stormers to finish and apparently 63 minutes were lost across all the Rainbow Cup matches in the northern and southern hemisphere last weekend because of all the stoppages. That’s one hour of non-activity. We still need to make sure we stamp out head injuries, but some balance is important,” White said on Friday.

The Bulls coach said he was particularly looking forward to the Sharks as adversaries this weekend because they are rated so highly as a team to beat.

“The Sharks are obviously a good side and they have not made many changes, consistency is what they’re going for. They have 10 points from two games and it’s just like when I arrived at Loftus last year – the Sharks were top of the pops from Super Rugby and everyone said they were the team to beat. It’s exactly the same now, they’re a good side and I look forward to playing them again.

“It will be like the Currie Cup final again in the sense that we must win because they have a two-point headstart on us with those two bonus points. Our penalty count is a concern, but then I see that the Sharks have also given away an extraordinary amount of penalties, so it’s obviously just the way the game is being refereed at the moment. But we have the best referee [Jaco Peyper] in South Africa this weekend,” White said.

Pressure at the highest level of sport often equates to a lack of time and space and Proteas bowling coach Charl Langeveldt is hopeful that his charges will be able to execute their skills better as they move from T20s to ODIs against England.

The first ODI in the three-match series is at Newlands on Friday afternoon and South Africa will be desperate to put their 3-0 hammering in the T20s behind them. Time is on their side, as their 50-over form has generally been better than their T20 efforts in recent times.

“Most of the guys have been playing four-day cricket and got some bowling in there, but we haven’t had a lot of T20 cricket recently and we missed out on two of our warm-up games because of Covid. It’s about match-fitness and T20 is very difficult because it comes down to execution under pressure. You can train as much as you want in the nets, but it’s not the same intensity.

“We’ve got work to do to be able to execute under pressure, but the first two T20s came down to two big moments, just two overs, and we have learnt from it to identify the big moment and embrace it. Fifty-over cricket is still high intensity but it’s longer time. The batsmen take more time to settle in so that means more time for the bowlers to settle into a rhythm and get used to the pitch,” Langeveldt said on Thursday.

There will be at least two changes in South Africa’s batting line-up with the in-form Faf du Plessis being rested for the ODIs and Reeza Hendricks released from the squad. The Proteas will be eager to get the experienced duo of David Miller and Andile Phehlukwayo back into action after they were in Covid quarantine.

The absence of the injured Kagiso Rabada means the Proteas could well bring Junior Dala in, with Langeveldt saying a big part of their ODI strategy is to be in the opposing batsmen’s faces and try to strike in the early overs.

“KG is a massive loss for us because he always strikes with the new ball and we speak a lot about taking wickets in the first 10 overs so we can shift pressure on to the opposition. We see Junior as purely a 50-over bowler because he hits hard lengths and is aggressive, he can use the two bouncers and two new balls you get in ODIs. We’ve worked on upskilling him with slower balls and yorkers.

“Junior gives us that extra pace and aggression and to have Andile back would give us six bowlers which is great for us in 50-over cricket. He has a special one-day record and is also an option bowling at the back end. We need to be clever and be able to have that next level of intensity. We must be aggressive in both our batting and our bowling, you can’t sit back against England,” Langeveldt said.