Jean de Villiers
Marcell Coetzee
Willie le Roux
Springbok captain Jean de Villiers, Marcell Coetzee and Willie le Roux have all been ruled out of the return match against Los Pumas in Buenos Aires next weekend, because of injuries.
Jean de Villiers fractured his jaw in The Rugby Championship defeat against the Pumas at Growthpoint Kings Park in Durban on Saturday, which will rule him out for 4 to 6 weeks. The Springbok captain will be able to continue with the bulk of the training sessions during this time.
Marcell Coetzee suffered a medial collateral ligament injury to his left knee, which will rule him out for approximately 6 weeks. The injury is unrelated to the knee injury he suffered a few weeks ago in Brisbane.
Willie le Roux sprained his ankle early in the match against Los Pumas and will not be considered for the trip to Buenos Aires. He will undergo scans early in the week to determine the exact nature of the injury.
Springbok team doctor Craig Roberts said that players possibly returning from injury, such as Victor Matfield, Fourie du Preez and JP Pietersen, will be assessed on Monday before a decision on their availability for next weekend will be taken.
Although Warren Whiteley, Steven Kitshoff, Frans Malherbe, Willem Alberts and Jan Serfontein were declared fit to play last week, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer decided to give them an additional week to recover and they will be considered for selection next week.
Apart from Jean de Villiers, Marcell Coetzee and Willie le Roux, other injured players who will not be considered for the trip to Buenos Aires, are Jannie du Plessis, Coenie Oosthuizen, Francois Louw and Duane Vermeulen.
Morné Steyn has also been released from the squad for the week to be with his wife, who is due to give birth to their 2nd child on Monday.
Francois Steyn, although still recovering from injury, is on compassionate leave following the passing of his brother and a decision on when he will rejoin the squad to be assessed will be taken at a later stage.
Heyneke Meyer
Heyneke Meyer accepts responsibility for the loss and apologises to the nation:
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer accepted responsibility for the 37 / 25 defeat the Springboks suffered against Argentina in The Rugby Championship at Growthpoint Kings Park in Durban on Saturday.
The coach, who suffered defeat against Argentina for the 1st time since he took over the Springboks reigns in 2012, admitted that his side did not play well enough to deserve victory in the final match of the tournament. The tournament was won by Australia’s Wallabies earlier in the day.
“We need to give credit to Argentina, who outplayed us today. They delivered a great performance and deserved the win. They played a game that suited them and not us. We could not adapt and sadly, we were just not good enough today,” Meyer said.
“We have let our country and our supporters down today with this unacceptable performance. We are a proud team, but you will lose sometimes. What we dished up in the 1st half was very poor. I apologise to the nation as the buck stops with me as coach. There are no excuses. I take responsibility and will work harder to rectify this before the Rugby World Cup.”
Meyer lamented his side’s handling errors and inability to secure quick phase ball as contributing factors for their downfall.
“We managed quick ball against New Zealand and Australia despite them having 2 of the best opensiders in the world. Today we could not manage that, for a variety of reasons.”
Meyer, who expects the 2015 Rugby World Cup to be the toughest yet, is still looking forward to his team’s charge at the Webb Ellis Trophy.
“This does not put us back for the Rugby World Cup. We are a much better team than this. We will be working even harder. I still believe we are in contention for the World Cup. We are getting a number of big ball carriers back soon and we will be better for it.”
Springbok captain, Jean de Villiers, also offered no excuses.
“Credit to them, on the day they were a far better team than us. We conceded such easy tries, 3 off set-phase. It was just too easy. We, on the other hand, had to work very hard for our tries. We were all lethargic today. We need to find a reason why it happened. We prepared well, but everyone was down today.” De Villiers feels the players will have to have a hard look at themselves.
“Yesterday’s captain’s run was good, the guys were focused. We were asleep and then played catch-up rugby though. We will sit down and have a hard look at ourselves. We can’t convert at the moment.”
The midfielder admitted some frustration at scrum penalties and the incident where the Pumas scored a try with a number of medics still on the field.
“The medics were still on the field, so that was frustrating when they scored that try. We should have been ready though, but did not react the way we should have. It costs you games as we saw tonight.”
De Villiers took a knock to the jaw and Marcell Coetzee injured a knee, but more information on those injuries will be made available later.
I see some news articles describe the Springboks as hitting Rock Bottom!
I think they did worse than that… they were actually digging below Rock Bottom!
It was terrible… woeful… painfull!
Whereto from here?
Jean injured again… I say cut him totally from the Springbok squad!
Nice fightback from injury Jean, pity it did not work out.
I say that we need to rethink several Springbok aspects:
1. Firstly our Centre pairing – We need the Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel centre pairing restored and now supported for the Rugby World Cup.
2. The Springbok Scrumhalf situation is hugely unsatisfactory – Maybe time to gamble very bloody big with Fourie du Preez and to bring Francois Hougaard back into the mix (he was bloody sharp on the weekend at scrumhalf forthe Blue Bulls). Neither Ruan Pienaar, nor Cobus Reinach enspires much belief in me!
3. Willie le Roux at fullback – Now there is a conundrum of note, sublime on attack but woeful on defence. Someone will have to work hard with him on defensive skills and alignment in the next 5 weeks, that is for sure.
4. Right wing… a fiercely troublesome position – A proper solution needs to be found, and freegin quickly! Mvovo or Mapoe would be my choices.
5. Flyhalf – Neither Pat Lambie, nor Handré Pollard is producing the goodies… maybe time to think about bringing Elton Jantjies in for a run and also have Morné Steyn along for Rugby World Cup. I would play Lambie for 80 minutes against the Pumas at fullback in Willie le Roux’s place and I would give Elton a full 80 minute go at flyhalf.
6. Vincent Koch & Frans Malherbe did not work out at tighthead prop – So, Marcel van der Merwe and Trevor Nyakane on the bench would have to do in Argentina on the weekend… till Doc Jannie is back, whereafter Jannie would need to be the prime tighthead and Marcel van der Merwe his backup.
7. Loosehead prop – I would throw Steven Kitshoff into the deep end on the weekend against the Pumas and have Beast there as bench backup.
8. Hard work would need to go into the scrums for the coming weekend – All 8 forwards need to work on that combined scrumming machine, it’s not just up to the front rowers to scrum.
9. Loose forwards – Although an abundance of traditional opensiders combined well for the Springboks against the Wallabies and All Blacks, against the Pumas you need extra grunt of a loose forward enforcer… hope Willem Alberts is up for the chore and resumes “Bone Collector” duties!
I think it is safe to say that complacency will not be an issue for this coming weekend, Los Pumas themselves made sure of that!
My solutions does not re-invent the wheel, but it would change critical little elements… and that is what we want, not true?
@ grootblousmile:
1. Agreed, but we probably need Jean as backup.
2. Agreed, but would be inclined to consider Faf as a pairing for Elton
3. As you say, Lambie at 15 is a good idea
4. Senatla. By a country mile
5. Elton should have been 1st choice all along
6. I wouldn’t throw out either just yet
7. Agreed
8. Agreed
9. Agreed
🙂
There is no room for sentimentality in Bok rugby going into this World Cup.
Cut the deadwood. Jean de Villiers is a shadow of his former self. Stick with Schalk at 8. And as captain. Heyneke Meyer cannot bank on Duane coming bank.Sad but true.
Victor and Fourie du Preez look very comfortable. In the grandstand. Laughing. Let them stay there…
Time is running out for Heyneke. He has one more game. Then it is crunch time for his 31 man Bok selection for the WC.
IAAS wrote:
Agreed
Let us see De Allende and Kriel reunited.
More exciting could be Etzebeth and PSDT – Lood, in my opinion, has cemented his place in the WC squad. Let him play off the bench this weekend. These 3 are the future of Bok lock rugby.
And one more thing.
Pair Lambie and Reinach together. He is taking them both to the WC – they are both from the Sharks. But when last did they play as a combo for 80 minutes. Or even 40 minutes.
2 @ grootblousmile:
Cannot agree with you re the flyhalf.
You cant bring in someone like Jantjies, or anyone else 5 weeks before the world cup and expect them to fix a major vark up that has has been evident for a while.
The management have played their hand and been found wanting.
The best thing now is to take the bunch they have and get some specialists in to sort them out.
HM is at best naieve if he really thinks that coaches like Loubsher and van Graanares the best available.
Jake saw in time that Toetie was not the answer and took remedial action to fix it and bought the trophy home.
The question is does HM have the balls to admit his coaching team is lacking and do something about it?
Methinks not.
I am still overcoming the loss to the Abs and whilst it would’ve been nice to win this years RC, the Abs will take a lot out of that game and it is a good learning curve for the big show in England. As for the Bok….sure it is somewhat of a shock, but I always believed that it was a loss that was on the cards going by the results over the last three years v the Argies…. now it’s up to HM and his team to pull things together and right the ship….One thing I’ve noticed about the Bok is the enthusiasm they display when playing against the Abs. How does Meyer get them up to that level of commitment when playing against who they believe are lesser teams?…..Once committed the Bok can beat allcomers, give them a fluid gameplan and they will get to highest levels of consistency….. One thing they need is a coach who can be tactile and willing to grow players and let them evolve outside the square….
@ Te Rangatira:
It clear the boks are lacking the mental capacity, yesterday was by no means the benchmark of their performances so far this year, and it has been brewing for a while that we cant win anything under pressure. 5 years without any trophy for aouth african teams. 2011, 2012 stormers choking, 2013 bulls choking, 2014 sharks choking. We have grown to become a bunch of losers and there is no winning atmosphere in the team.
Losing is a habit
What if the reason of decline of the Springboks could be linked to the watering down of Currie Cup?
We are winning buggerall in Super Rugby, especially choking in high intensity games like play offs.
Last year WP won the Currie Cup with 0 of the current springboks
In other words apart from our “fitness” i then we do not have the mental capacity to win those high intensity games anymore. What have any of our players won over the last 5 years looking at our squad? I can only thing of Habana, Morne Steyn and for the currie cup Lambie… all the more reason, Lambie HAS to play this weekend.
Would be interesting to compare what competitions our players have won in the last 5 years compared to the Australian’s, Kiwi’s, English and Irish potential world cup squads.
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