Patrick Lambie
Cobus Reinach
Rugby World Cup winners JP Pietersen and Schalk Burger will start Saturday’s second Test in the Castle Lager Outgoing Tour against England at Twickenham as the Springbok match-23 is retained from last weekend.
The five changes to the team are straight swaps between the starting line-up and the bench. Along with Pietersen and Burger, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has handed starts to hooker Adriaan Strauss and the halfback pair of Cobus Reinach and Pat Lambie.
Cornal Hendricks, Handré Pollard, Francois Hougaard, Teboho Mohoje and Bismarck du Plessis will start on the bench.
“We’ve accepted our performance against Ireland last weekend was not up to scratch and everyone in the touring squad has put up their hands and dug deep this week,” said Meyer. “We’ve really worked hard at fixing the mistakes we made and the challenge is now to put that into action on Saturday.”
Meyer said the changes were not a knee-jerk reaction following the result in Dublin, but rather in line with rotational changes that he had in mind before the start of the tour.
Strauss, Lambie and Pietersen all started in the Springboks’ last Test at Twickenham, two years ago, while Saturday’s match will be Reinach’s first in the starting team.
“Pat started at Twickenham for us two years ago and did very well,” said Meyer. “He’s playing well at the moment and I wanted to give him the opportunity to start. Pat is tactically very astute and even though he’s still pretty young, he’s got a lot of experience.
“Adriaan, Schalk and JP have all started a number of Tests this year and they will slot in easily – we decided beforehand that we wanted to start all of these players in one of the first two Tests on tour.
“It’s a big occasion for Cobus but he would not have been here if we didn’t believe he could deliver the goods, and he’ll be next to his provincial team-mate in Pat.
“As usual, we’re also expecting our replacements to raise the intensity when they’re sent on and Bismarck, who had a very good game in Dublin especially in the set-pieces, ‘Oupa’, Francois, Cornal and Handré will provide important cover off the bench.”
Springbok team:
15 Willie le Roux (22 caps, 35 points)
14 JP Pietersen (57 caps, 90 points)
13 Jan Serfontein (17 caps, 5 points)
12 Jean de Villiers (Captain – 103 caps, 135 points)
11 Bryan Habana (104 caps, 280 points)
10 Pat Lambie (37 caps, 81 points)
9 Cobus Reinach (3 caps, 0 points)
8 Duane Vermeulen (26 caps, 10 points)
7 Schalk Burger (74 caps, 65 points)
6 Marcell Coetzee (23 caps, 30 points)
5 Victor Matfield (Vice-captain – 118 caps, 35 points)
4 Eben Etzebeth (30 caps, 0 points)
3 Jannie du Plessis (61 caps, 5 points)
2 Adriaan Strauss (41 caps, 25 points)
1 Tendai Mtawarira (62 caps, 10 points)
Replacements:
16 Bismarck du Plessis (67 caps, 45 points)
17 Trevor Nyakane (10 caps, 5 points)
18 Coenie Oosthuizen (18 caps, 10 points)
19 Bakkies Botha (84 caps, 35 points)
20 Teboho “Oupa” Mohoje (4 caps, 0 points)
21 Francois Hougaard (33 caps, 25 points)
22 Handré Pollard (7 caps, 61 points)
23 Cornal Hendricks (10 caps, 25 points)
Date: Saturday 15 November
Venue: Twickenham, London
Kick-Off: 16:30 SA Time (14:30 BST & GMT)
Referee: Steve Walsh (Australia)
Assistant Referees: Jérôme Garcès (France), Nick Briant (New Zealand)
TMO: Eric Gauzins (France)
Stats and facts:
- The Springbok starting team boasts a total of 778 Test caps (343 in the backline and 435 in the forwards), while there are a further 233 caps worth of experience on the bench.
- South Africa and England have played each other 36 times since 1906, with the Springboks winning 22 Tests, losing 12 and two were drawn. The Springboks have scored 749 points and 69 tries and conceded 564 points and 39 tries for an average score of 21-16.
- South Africa and England last met on 24 November 2012 at Twickenham in London. The Springboks won by 16-15 thanks to a try by Willem Alberts and 11 points from the boot of Patrick Lambie (one conversion and three penalty goals). England kicked five penalties, three by Owen Farrell and two by Toby Flood.
- Jean de Villiers will extend his record as the most-capped Springbok centre, with 88 Tests in this position and will captain South Africa for the 32nd time, placing him third behind John Smit (83) and Gary Teichmann (36).
- Victor Matfield will extend his record as the most capped Springbok in history (118 Tests). He will also extend his record of 118 Tests as a lock and will also extend his record as the oldest Springbok ever at 37 years 181 days.
- Bryan Habana will extend his record as the most-capped Springbok wing, with 103 Tests in this position. If he scores a try, he will extend his record of 56 Test tries for South Africa.
- If he goes on and scores a try Bismarck du Plessis will extend his record of nine Test tries for South Africa as a hooker.
- Schalk Burger will extend his record as the most capped Springbok flanker in history (72 caps). If he scores a try, he will become the sole record-holder for most Test tries as a flanker (11), a record he currently shares with Juan Smith.
- Willie le Roux, Cornal Hendricks, Duane Vermeulen, Jannie du Plessis and Bismarck du Plessis have played in all 10 Tests for the Springboks in 2014. Bryan Habana and Tendai Mtawarira have both missed only one Test in 2014.
- Schalk Burger (Jnr) and Cobus Reinach are sons of Springboks. Schalk Burger (Snr) played six Tests for South Africa (1984-1986) and Jaco Reinach four Tests for South Africa in 1986. They played together in all four Tests against the New Zealand Cavaliers in 1986.
- It will be the fourth time in history that a Springbok team will have three centurions in the starting line-up. The three previous times were against Australia and New Zealand in the Rugby Championship and against Ireland last week.
- It will be Heyneke Meyer’s 35th Test in charge of the Springboks since he took over in 2012. Of the previous 34 Tests South Africa have won 24, lost eight and drew twice.
- The referee is Steve Walsh of Australia. It will be his 18th Test involving South Africa. This is a new record for a referee in Tests involving SA, breaking the record of himself and Alain Rolland. Of the previous 17 Tests the Springboks have won 13, lost one and three were drawn. His last Test involving South Africa was in August this year against Argentina in Salta in the Rugby Championship – a game that the Springboks won 33-31.
Springbok Test match records at Twickenham:
- Most points – 21 by Jannie de Beer (6p, 1d) against Australia on 30 October, 1999.
- Most tries – two by Chester Williams against England on 18 November, 1995.
- Most conversions – three by Ruan Pienaar against England on 22 November, 2008.
- Most penalty goals – six by Jannie de Beer against Australia on 30 October, 1999.
- Most drop goals – four by Andre Pretorius against England on 25 November, 2006.
- The Springboks have played 18 times at Twickenham, winning ten and losing eight. They have scored 283 points and 27 tries and conceded 296 points and 26 tries for an average score of 16-17.
@ Victoriabok:
Geniet etenstyd, ek gaan nou bed toe 😛 lekker dag
MacroBok wrote:
Dankie ek sal
Willie le Roux is a 2014 IRB Rugby Player of the Year nominee.
Pollard is the 2014 IRB Junior Rugby Player of the Year.
They are undoubtedly world class.
Both players deserve to be backed by saffa fans &, more importantly, by their coach, & not be discarded based on one or two unsatisfactory performances. Surely coaching involves working with players, ironing out problems/errors/shortcomings when they become apparent? One can’t just continue chopping & changing our #10 as HM has been doing. I’m surprised that some on Supersport’s match day panel & some over here are suggesting that the same “afkophoender” strategy that is applied to #10 be applied to #15 as well. FFS, we can’t go back to the Straeuli philosophy of Bok selection. Selection is no substitute for effective coaching, directing & motivation.
HM talks a lot about consistency, but in reality he is consistency lite.
Time to walk the talk, especially with less than a year to RWC2015.
PS: Matfield usurped the on field captaincy & made the calls to kick for lineouts rather than penalty points. He could only have done that with HM’s consent or instruction. And the game plan (running in wet weather, not taking easy penalty points) was HM’s. Tis time for HM to be accountable & accept responsibility. That’s where the buck stops.
We don’t chop & change our coaches based (predominantly) on near term match outcomes; why then is it acceptable, nay, even advocated, that we deal with our star players on that basis?
@ Angostura:
I agree meyer should be accountable for our stratrgy on the weekend.
But i disagree that we are not consistant. Pollard played 6 out of the last 7 matches at ten and the rest of the team has consistantly played this year. Beast, bissie/strauss, jannie, eben, matfield, coetzee, vermeulen, pollard, jean, jan, habana has consistantly played this year
At 7 we have looked for a alberts replacement who would Likely also have been part of the consistantly selected group of players…
How consistant do you need to be to be “consistant”?
So Dr Venter thinks that the Ireland game was just an anomoly.
Fair chirp, but based on his logic, then so was the RWC quarter final v Australia.
SA dominated possession and set pieces but still lost the game, and I’m sure it’s happened since then as well. (A game v Scotland at Murrayfield seems to comes to mind but I may be wrong.)
At what point does the consistent re-occurence of the same anomoly become tendency?
The fact is that SA have this type of game from time to time and we need to look at ALL of the contributing factors that each instance have in order to get to the root cause.
I’m certainly not qualified to do that analysis, but I can see the occurences.
As for the coaches selections, I’ve said time and again that I do not believe any coach would pick a match day 23 that he doesn’t feel are the best players to win THAT game given the specific set of circumstances in time and space. (Even in a RC game just prior to a world cup.)
Speaking of accountability. Tank lanning wrote. an article couple weeks ago claiming he deserves credit for our all black win… I wonder what his stance is this week? 😆
MacroBok wrote:
Saturday the Bokke will be playing their 11th Test of the season, & it heralds the introduction of their 3rd starting #10 (for his 1st start of the year) in arguably the most critical Bok Test of the year. None of these changes were injury enforced.
Imo that is not indicative consistency.
But perhaps we should wait for the final 2 Tests of the year; it might prove to be instructive: Will Lambie start in those 2 Tests as well? Will Goosen get his chance? Or will Steyn or Pollard be recalled?
HM’s overall track record during his TENURE (not just 2014) is one of selection inconsistency in certain important positions.
I’ve posted details about it before.
I find it bizarre that the decision to ignore the three points and take the lineout is being laid at Matfield’s door when de Villiers is a serial offender in this regard both in super rugby and test matches.
Maybe some people just like their scapebulls.
😆
@ Angostura:
Namely scrumhalf, tighthead, 13 and 5, 6 and 7… Positions that have been plagued by either injury or loss of form… Do you suggest we still play Jeandre kruger, jj engelbreght, pirt van zyl, louis schreuder malherbe pat cilliers alberts etc? Seriously… Now your comaining because pollard does not play 7 out of the last 8 games? So he is an extremely poor example.
158 @ gunther:
de Villiers also a serial offender at going dead with the ball in hand at tackle time instead of passing or offloading, yet he seems to be a popular captain (to some)!
@ Scrumdown:
Matfield did do that a few times on Saturday… But how can people justify the boks not going for goal as only Meyer and Matfields fault?
@ Scrumdown:
Oh i got it 😉
@ Scrumdown:
Don’t get me wrong he’s a great captain but according to some it’s like Big Vic staged some sort of coup out there in Saturday.
One of the biggest problems with the Boks attacking game is they don’t have enough runners off the ball.
When you look at The Ball Sacks the ball carriers always have a couple of options open to them.
163 @ gunther:
gunther wrote:
That’s been pointed out ad-nauseum, yet the game plan never changes. Hence one must conclude that this is the preferred method!
My two cents on Pollard / Lambie.
It has been reported widely that HM has decided before the tour that Lambie will start against England but that Pollard is still above Lambie in the pecking order.
He has also told the players about his intentions – I therefore don’t see it as a kneejerk reaction. Surely HM wouldn’t lie to us about that!! The players and their relatives read newspapers as well and if HM starts lying to the players we’ll soon have a lot of unhappy Boks.
IMO Hougaard had to be replaced due to his poor performance against the Irish. I would have liked to see Jano Vermaak on the bench though!
England’s team to face the Boks, 2 changes to the one that narrowly lots to the All Blacks, Anthony Watson starts on wing for injured Rokodunguni with Marlan Yarde being added to the bench:
Mike Brown (Harlequins); Anthony Watson (Bath), Brad Barritt (Saracens), Kyle Eastmond (Bath Rugby), Jonny May (Gloucester); Owen Farrell (Saracens), Danny Care (Harlequins); Joe Marler (Harlequins), Dylan Hartley (Northampton), David Wilson (Bath); Dave Attwood (Bath), Courtney Lawes (Northampton); Tom Wood (Northampton), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins), Billy Vunipola (Saracens)
Replacements
Rob Webber (Bath), Matt Mullan (Wasps), Kieran Brookes (Newcastle), George Kruis (Saracens), Ben Morgan (Gloucester), Ben Youngs (Leicester), George Ford (Bath), Marland Yarde (Harlequins)
Weather may play a role in this game.
SA the underachievers in wet conditions.
Attachment:
Heyneke Meyer’s tenure has spanned 34 Tests to date, during which time he has capped 33 new Bokke. Of those 33 ONLY 4 (a 12.12% vesting rate) have been an unqualified success at Test level (Eben Etzebeth, Duane Vermeulen, Willie le Roux & Marcell Coetzee). And judging by some comments posted over here, some would say that I’m overly generous in that assessment.
Since his maiden Test XV selection, HM has had to make a further 34 such selections (including the selection for Saturday). HM has on only 5 occasions (i.e. 14.7% of the time) left his Test XV unchanged. During his tenure he has on average made 3.24 changes per Test XV selection (i.e. an average 21.6% change in starting personnel per selection). HM’s average selection changes per Test escalated as follows: 2012 = 2.73; 2013 = 3.12; 2014 = 3.82.
Make of that whatever you wish, but imo it is (at least to some significant extent) indicative of uncertainty & inconsistency.
I would’ve thought that when the Bokke play the strongest teams, namely NZ, Aus, & on this tour Ire & Eng, the coach would always select what he considers his strongest XV from the ranks of the fit & available. Hence the current selection change of 5 seems erratic & ill conceived, irrespective of whether that decision was made this week or some time ago!
Except for players 2, 10 & 13, I think I know who HM considers his best XV & I cannot fault him in that regard. But #’s 2, 10 & 13 are all very important positions & it is worrying that first choices for these positions are not yet settled.
Part of the blame for the erratic performance & apparent lack of confidence of certain players, as well as the very poor vesting rate of new caps, may in no small measure be attributable to the coach’s said inconsistent selection policy.
Same starting XV that played against Argentina to play against New Zealand, 4 changes on bench with Fraser Brown, Tim Swinson, Johnnie Beattie and Chris Cusiter coming in to the squad
@ Angostura:
i just quickly checked
31 players got capped by meyer.
Marcell C, kruger, eben, jacque pot, pat cillier, jje, jano, goosen, duane, malherbe, taute, botha, willie, janneman, trevor, siya, pietvz, adriaanse, psdt, cornal, lood, pollard, marcel vdm, oupa, lewies, boshoff, damien, whitely, reinach, jantjies, coenie… capped springboks with quite a few squad players.
Capped players in the last three years
All Blacks . 27
australia. 30
Ireland . 31
England . 32
Wales . 25* Could be outdated
France . 21* Definitely.
I think 30 new caps is about average. Without even beginning ti cons8der the average age before 2012 when squads like Wales were quite young.
@ MacroBok:
Actually, it is 33 new Bok caps as stated – you overlooked Elton Jantjies & Franco van der Merwe (you have something against the Lions? 🙂 )
The damning fact is not so much that HM has capped more new internationals than any of his main competitor coaches/nations, but that he has only vested 4 of those 33 new caps.
@ Angostura:
Haha no i have jantjies. I see franco made his debut last year 2013 sorry Lions or sharks 🙂
I have no problem with rotating Bissie and strauss.
And it is difficult to say 4/32 because it is fairly isolated… When you consider that apart from duane, willie, eben and marcel we have players who are consistantly injured.
Malherbe, arno, psdt
Guys that didnt cut it or left
Kruger, potgieter, vermaak, elton, franco, keegan
New caps recently added and yet to prove themselves
Marcel vdm, whitely, oupa, boshoff, lewies, de allende, reinach, pollard, lood
Guys who are generally part of the squad
Janneman, cornal,keegan
And guys who fell off to the wayside after SR and just had to be replaced
Adriaanse, kolisi, jje, taute, basson
@ MacroBok:
Hi, Barry Roux.
168b> @ Angostura:
it is an interesting criteria to measure consistency though, i would really be interested to see how AC(stormers) jake(sharks) and steve hanson measure up?
@ Nama:
Middag oscar:P
Jeeez, what a day so far!
Was out from farking early at clients in the dirty little farking town of Springs… after a late night’s work last night.
Got back to the office somewhere after lunch time.. and immediately started fixing a client in the Cape’s VPN (Virtual Private Network)… and whilst doing that and waiting for some stuff to happen and re-load, left a couple of comments on the Jono Ross thread for a new Frenchie blogger…
Am NOW finished with the Cape kakkas… and busy looking at E-Mail for the first time today.
When done with the E-Mails, I can finally start really working for the day… so.. what gives you the idea that I will be working into the small hours of the night again, tonight??
How 1 day cricket has changed…..not so long ago if a team scored 250 it was considered a huge score.
WORLD RECORD!
Indian superstar Rohit Sharma has become the first batsman in ODI history to break the 250-run barrier.
SHARMA SMASHED 264 RUNS FROM 172 BALLS!
Angostura wrote:
You must remember HM inherited a bare cupboard when he started
1.) After WC 2011 a lot of players retired
2.) SARU in their infinite wisdom had no contingency planning for a coach, they appointed HM a couple of months before the Poms landed here. Compare that to the AB’s, they had Hansen in the fold and they seamlessly transitioned from Henry to Hansen after the WC. And we wonder why we have such a hard time beating them?
3.)SARU failed to bring the next generation of Bok players** through from our generally well performing junior Bok teams so the new coach had to start from scratch everytime
4.) A lot of players were injured after a brutal S15 and he had to make do with whatever was available. When last did we start a test with two brand new locks?
5.) A lot of the players used in 2012 were stopgaps (see 1 and 3) and were never used again like Juandre Kruger and Jacques Potgieter. HM also needed to get the team right from scratch hence him using a lot of players. To compare him to Strauli is ridiculous
**-I still think we should get a good coach like Dawie Theron , select a SA A team with a mix of the remaining senior players and the upcoming juniors and do an EOYT with them playing lower ranked teams like Canada, USA, some English clubs etc. The All Blacks do it and it’s a good way for juniors to put their hand up and for players returning from injury to get back into it. Last year this time I saw a game between Canada and the AB’s while the real AB’s were on EOYT, Weepu played for them. This year they’re doing it again and they have a Maori team playing as well, that’s a lot of players getting exposure playing on a higher level
nortie wrote:
We defended 170 successfully in the 1992 WC 😛
178 @ Victoriabok:
People will see what they want to see, so with some who have already made up their minds, your erudite post is wasted on them.
I think your summation is spot-on!
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