Ken Borland

It’s been awhile since Cornal Hendricks played in midfield for the Bulls but the Springbok will be back there on Saturday night when the Currie Cup champions take on the Cardiff Blues in their United Rugby Championship match at the Arms Park.

The 33-year-old Hendricks was a revelation when coach Jake White moved him from the wing to centre last year upon his arrival at Loftus Versfeld, but he has not played in midfield since the final round-robin game of the Currie Cup, against the Free State Cheetahs on August 28.

And, in a new-look backline that White announced on Friday, Hendricks will be playing outside centre and not in the No.12 jersey where he has previously starred for the Bulls. It’s all to do with the fact that the Bulls are playing for the first time on a 4G pitch, which is a mixture of grass and synthetic turf, and pace will be of the essence.

“The most important thing is how we adapt to the different challenge of the pitch, the pace of the game is going to be very quick, it will challenge both our defence and attack,” White said on Friday.

“I really wanted to play Stedman Gans at 13 with Cornal at 12, but Stedman has a tight hamstring and we couldn’t risk it. That didn’t work out, but fortunately Kurt-Lee Arendse is ready to come back on the wing.

“If Stedman had been fit we could have had almost a Sevens backline with their wonderful feet and stepping. Cornal actually trained a lot at inside centre this week, but Harold Vorster is obviously very accomplished there.

“It’s going to be exciting to see how this backline goes on a nice, hard surface. The surface is so even that you can go flat out and push the tempo big time. Teams can use the pace to outwork teams instead of going through them,” White said.

The veteran coach is delighted to be back at the Cardiff Arms Park and has relished showing his players, some of them on their first British tour, the aluminium plaques, statues and other rugby memorabilia around the Welsh capital. White is expecting a passionate home crowd to make their life even more difficult on Friday night.

“They have smaller crowds over here, but they make the noise of a massive crowd. Plus they have been kept out of watching rugby, so it is still relatively new for them to come and watch games again.

“So there’s going to be a helluva atmosphere, they love rugby in Wales, this is real rugby country. We see the plaques and pictures of rugby legends in the shops, and it’s a wonderful experience for the juniors to be here. And it’s nice for me to show them all the rugby history,” White said.

Bulls team:David Kriel, Madosh Tambwe, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Johan Goosen, Embrose Papier; Elrigh Louw, Jacques du Plessis, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Janko Swanepoel, Jacques van Rooyen, Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima. Bench – Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Lizo Gqoboka, Robert Hunt, Walt Steenkamp, Arno Botha, Keagan Johannes, Chris Smith, Lionel Mapoe.

The Springboks are finally home after spending 14 weeks in a bio-secure bubble, having restored their pride with their epic win over the All Blacks in the last Rugby Championship Test, having pushed them to the brink in the previous match.

The world champions are also back at number one in the WorldRugby rankings, a quite remarkable achievement when one considers that, having not played since winning the World Cup in November 2019, they had to play the might of the British and Irish Lions and four Tests away from home against top three sides New Zealand and Australia.

The Springboks certainly deserve their rest now, until the end-of-year tour to the United Kingdom at the end of the month. Of course, half the team that beat New Zealand last weekend will already be heading off to the Northern Hemisphere, because they play for overseas clubs.

There are also, of course, four South African teams currently in Wales and Scotland, playing in the United Rugby Championship. Starting that tough new challenge away from home has been a bridge too far for the South African franchises with just one win from eight matches so far.

The struggles in the URC have further justified Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus’s decision to look to the Northern Hemisphere for the bulk of the national squad, due to the poor state of the local game. For those who have been involved in South African rugby for a while, there are definite parallels with when we returned from isolation in 1992.

It took a while for the Springboks to adapt to where the game had moved on to, and the input of two overseas-educated coaches in Ian McIntosh and Kitch Christie.

We can blame Covid for the recent isolation that meant no international competition for our domestic teams for nearly 20 months.

This has been exacerbated by the talent-drain from these shores to those self-same European teams that has been going on for several years now. This means we are currently trying to find our feet in a new competition, overseas, against some of the leading clubs in the world, with weakened teams who have been denied international competition for more than a year-and-a-half.

The damage done by the talent-drain and Covid to our game seems to have been underestimated in many quarters, and this is reason enough to be a little patient when it comes to expecting our four franchises to contend with the top URC teams.

The size of the fight in the dog is going to have to come to the fore over the next fortnight, because matching the skills that the European teams are executing at high tempo is not just going to happen overnight.

Tempo and skill-set are two factors that have dogged our local rugby players for a while, which explains why the Springboks choose so many overseas-based players, and even then use something of a dumbed-down game-plan to ensure success.

This is not to say we don’t have skilful players. Just think of Lukhanyo Am and his ridiculous behind-the-back, reverse-flip pass to set up the first try last weekend, or Cheslin Kolbe and how we missed his dazzling feet. Elton Jantjies stamped his mark on the final minutes against the All Blacks by showcasing his excellent skills as well, and Lood de Jager is a lineout practitioner of great expertise.

But they are the outliers and one can only praise Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber for his pragmatism in recognising not just the strengths of his team, but also their weaknesses, and building his strategy around that.

Springbok prop Thomas du Toit will be tasked with ensuring the Sharks get in the game way quicker than they did last weekend as he has been handed the captaincy for their United Rugby Championship match against the Ospreys in Swansea on Friday night.

Coach Sean Everitt was quick to add that regular captain Phepsi Buthelezi is merely having a bit of a breather on the bench and will be back in the starting line-up next weekend.

The Sharks were horribly unfocused at the start of their match against Glasgow Warriors last weekend, trailing 19-0 in the first quarter, before dominating thereafter to only lose 35-24. Everitt believes Du Toit has the credentials to ensure that does not happen again.

“Thomas is full of confidence and playing his best rugby at the moment, he is a leader and he is certainly leading by performance at the moment. The more he plays, the better he gets and he was outstanding against Glasgow, his game has grown a lot lately.

“Phepsi is just resting, we want to take the pressure off him a bit, but he will be back next weekend. He needed a break, we just wanted to lighten his load a bit,” Everitt explained.

“Chasing the scoreboard away from home is always very difficult and if you look at the three tries we conceded early on, they were all quite soft. The guys were a bit shellshocked in the first 20 minutes, but then we managed to get some momentum for the rest of the game,” Everitt said on their poor start at Scotstoun.

The Sharks team announced on Wednesday shows plenty of rotational changes and, up front, tighthead Du Toit and blindside flank Gerbrandt Grobler were the only players to hold on to the same jersey, while in the backline, halfbacks Ruan Pienaar and Boeta Chamberlain and exciting wing Thaakir Abrahams are the only players still in the starting line-up from last weekend.

“There are a lot of rotational changes and some performance-based ones. But we wanted to freshen up the group, the changes don’t weaken the team, they are there to strengthen it. And Murray Koster, Fez Mbatha and Yaw Penxe are carrying injuries,” Everitt revealed.

Sharks: Anthony Volmink, Marnus Potgieter, Jeremy Ward, Marius Louw, Thaakir Abrahams, Boeta Chamberlain, Ruan Pienaar, Henco Venter, Gerbrandt Grobler, James Venter, Hyron Andrews, Ruben van Heerden, Thomas du Toit (Capt), Kerron van Vuuren, Ntuthuko Mchunu. Bench – Dan Jooste, Khwezi Mona, Lourens Adriaanse, Le Roux Roets, Phepsi Buthelezi, Dylan Richardson, Sanele Nohamba, Werner Kok.

A torrid year for the world champions is not quite over yet despite their face-saving 31-29 victory over the All Blacks on the Gold Coast on Saturday, as the Springboks still have an end-of-year tour to the United Kingdom.

Before Saturday’s impressive win, the Springboks, after nearly 18 months of not playing a Test, had endured a torrid, albeit triumphant series against the British and Irish Lions, beaten Argentina twice, but then seemed to be running out of steam as they lost both Tests against Australia and then succumbed to a narrow defeat against New Zealand, to lose three in a row for the first time since 2016.

South Africa will face Wales, Scotland and England on that tour but they will now do so with some confidence following an epic victory over the No.1 ranked team in the world and their greatest rivals.

“To have some momentum is massive, you need it if you’re going to build a team and rotate your squad,” Nienaber said.

“The margins are so small when numbers one to three play each other, but the players never doubted, they never lost focus and never veered off what we wanted to do. We’re not back at our 2019 level yet and we are still learning.

“But it’s been unbelievable for us to play against our Sanzaar partners again after we missed out in 2020. They bring a different style and mentality, and it’s nice to compete against a different skill-set and appetite for risk.

“We had a tough time when we lost some momentum, but in the end we have some back,” Nienaber said.

Man of the match Duane Vermeulen, whose trademark turnover in the final minute kept the Springboks’ hopes alive, said the victory had been a massive boost and gave an insight into just how hard bubble life in Australia has been for the last six weeks.

“It’s been a difficult time, away from our home and families, not seeing your kids or spending time with them, which is vital for your mental state. For the first two weeks we were in a hard bubble, making our own beds and cleaning our rooms.

“We’ve just had to keep on adjusting and we got it all together at the end. There are good vibes and energy now, which we can take into the end-of-year tour.

“We only have two weeks off and then it’s another five or six weeks on tour. But we are in a good mental state at the moment,” Vermeulen said.

Vermeulen and the rest of the pack were superb in exerting their alpha-male dominance on the All Blacks, but in the end it was some vital touches from substitute backs Elton Jantjies and Francois Steyn that made the difference.

Nienaber was full of praise for his bench.

“Last week I wanted to bring Elton on but didn’t because of Marco van Staden’s injury, and I probably should have bitten the bullet and done it. He was excellent when he came on and Frans was brilliant, he has unbelievable ability with those 50/22 kicks which we utilised.

“We have quality players on the bench, they are there to fulfil a role, once the starters have done their specific jobs and emptied their tanks,” Nienaber said.