JJ Engelbrecht
The Blue Bulls Company (Pty) Ltd on Thursday confirmed the release of JJ Engelbrecht to the Ospreys in Wales.
Engelbrecht, who played 65 times in the Vodacom Bulls jersey since joining the team in 2012, was due to link up with his Pretoria team mates upon returning from Japan, where he is playing for Toyota Industries Shuttles.
The Ospreys offer resulted in a release request by Engelbrecht, which has been granted by the BBC with immediate effect.
According to the BBC High Performance Manager, Xander Janse van Rensburg, the decision to release Engelbrecht was based on the depth they have in the midfield, where the likes of Jesse Kriel, Dan Kriel, Burger Odendaal, Jan Serfontein and Dries Swanepoel will be contesting starting spots.
“We decided to release JJ as we have good depth in the outside backs. We want to thank him for his contributions on and off the field over the last couple of seasons. He will be a massive asset to Ospreys no doubt,” Janse van Rensburg said.
Engelbrecht scored 45 points in his 65 appearances and also scored 5 Test tries in 12 appearances for the Springboks.
Announcement from the Ospreys:
Ospreys Rugby are delighted to announce the signing of South African international JJ Engelbrecht, subject to work permit.
South African international JJ Englebrecht signs until the end of the season
- Capable of playing centre or wing, he has 12 caps (5 tries) for the Springboks
- Has scored 9 tries in 65 Super Rugby appearances for the Bulls
- Played every game of the 2014 and 2015 Super Rugby seasons, not missing a single minute of the 2015 campaign
- Will arrive in Ospreylia later this month
In what has been described as “a major coup” for the region, 1 of the Southern Hemisphere’s most exciting backs is set to arrive at the Liberty Stadium this month on a contract that runs until the end of the season.
The 26-year old, full name Johannes Jacobus Engelbrecht, has been capped 12 times by South Africa, scoring 5 tries, having established himself as a hard running centre / wing combining pace and power at 1.9m tall and 95kg.
Andrew Millward, Rugby General Manager, said:
“For the Ospreys to secure such a quality player is a major coup and we are looking forward to welcoming him to the region.
“Clearly, with the enforced retirement of Andrew Bishop and the long-term injury to Ashley Beck, we’ve found our midfield resources stretched at times this season. JJ is a much needed, quality addition to the squad, who not only brings experience at the highest end of the game, but also a real dynamism in the wider channels.
“He fits the mould in terms of what we are looking for in his position. All successful teams need significant strength in depth and we’ve been talking about adding depth to the squad for a fair while. Clearly, supplementing our current options with a quality player like JJ will help us as we look to compete on 2 fronts in 2016.”
From Port Elizabeth, Engelbrecht 1st made an impact in the Currie Cup with Western Province where, as a 20-year old, he was among the replacements in a memorably tight contest against the 2009 British & Irish Lions.
With a growing reputation in his homeland he was snapped up by the Bulls in 2011 and made his Super Rugby debut the following year with his international bow coming that same summer.
He has been a mainstay of the Bulls’ Super Rugby squad over the last 4 seasons, not missing a single game in either of the last 2 seasons and playing every minute of their 2015 campaign in the 13 shirt. In total, he has made 65 appearances for the Bulls, scoring 9 tries.
Off the back of last year’s Super Rugby season he headed to Japan for the 2015 / 2016 campaign with Toyota Industries and will arrive at the Liberty Stadium this month following the conclusion of the Top League season.
thebulls & ospreysrugby
Sorry to see him go but all the best to JJ with this move.
Ospreys are currently 7th in the PRO12, 1 point ahead of Glasgow but Glasgow have played 2 games less than them. Ospreys have played 12 games, won 6 and lost 6.
The Bulls recently announced a group of 50 x U-19 players. Two players, Heino Bezuidenhout and Stedman Gans played in 2015 as centres for SA schools. They also have John Jackson who played 2014 as centre for SA schools and in 2015 SA U-20. Thus they have depth is both the senior and junior ranks.
Also it seems that Ospreys bought out the contract of JJ, thus cash in the pockets of the Bulls.
It seems to me good business sense.
@ dWeePer:
Didn’t know anything about the u19 players they announced the other day so it is good to read that there is some quality in there. We need to have quite a lot of depth with all the various competitions these days and it is good to have good youngsters coming through but still think you can’t play with too much inexperience and so not great to lose a fairly young but experienced player like JJ. But if he wanted to go there is no sense in keeping him and as you say it frees up some cash for us. Do you know what kind of financial deals go with a move like this? Clearly as he is no longer playing for us we are saving on his salary that we would have paid, but would Ospreys have had to pay some sort of transfer fee as well and if so roughly how much would that have been?
Talking about depth the Bulls talk about 5 players who will contest the 2 centre spots so that is 2.5 players per slot, although Jesse Kriel will probably also cover fullback so at most we are sitting with 2 players per slot there, putting this in perspective – Glasgow Warriors have gone through 5 or 6 hookers so far this season which is only about half way through due injuries, and at one point took the step of very quickly contracting the Georgian hooker Shalva Mamukashvili not long after the World Cup on a short term deal until the end of this season. I say 5 or 6 as am not sure on the timing of the injury of Kevin Bryce as to whether he actually played any games this season for Glasgow, maybe he played in warm up games, if he did play then it will be 6 hookers. That just shows how attritional the game is both in terms of physicality but also the sheer volumes of games and length of season. So sometimes you can’t have enough good quality players but budgets are limited.
Just had a look at the schedule, Ospreys are at home in the PRO12 on 31st January against Glasgow Warriors and that will be on BBC Alba which I can watch, wonder if JJ’s work permits will have come through in time for him to play by then, maybe a slot on the bench for him for that one if things are in place.
The Ospreys are away to Clermont on Friday in the Champions Cup with another Champions Cup game on Sunday 24th away to Exeter, in between they also have 2 away games in the British and Irish Cup – Sat 16 London Scottish and Sat 23 Yorkshire Carnegie. They must be fielding development type teams for the British and Irish Cup games looking at that schedule, so if he is available to play already by the 23-24th whether they will pick JJ as starting in the lower level B&I Cup to ease him in or through him in at the deep end against Exeter. Am thinking he may only make his Osprey’s debut against Glasgow.
Bjorn Basson can be used as fullback as well.
dWeePer wrote:
Everyone always mentions that JJ should only play wing, but oen regret would always be that we never got to see JJ at with a good run at full back (I think he played there once or twice in his first year at the bulls)…
Anyway, he is gone now, so good luck, would have been nice though if he stuck around… would be a good measure of Nollis Marais to see who he picks in the midfield.
9 @ MacroPolo:
Hi Macro do you think JJ would do well at fullback, has he played much in that position?
SA 152/3, difficult to judge really until the other team has batted but it feels like at this stage it is honours even, hopefully AB and Faf can put in a big partnership. At least going back to lower level cricket would have done Vilas confidence good seeing as he got a double hundred in his last game there, so hopefully he can carry this form through to this test and the unfortunate manner in which he had to be recalled ends up being a good thing. Said already during the Durban test that don’t see v Zyl as a test opener but they persist with him and he struggles again. They could have picked Duminy who also got a big double hundred in the same game Vilas did. Amla comes in quite early at times anyway so he could just as well open the batting. With them opting for the 4th quick bowler instead of Piedt the spinner they could have had Duminy who has proved quite good with his part time spin. We simply have to win this game and the most important way to win is to take 20 wickets so hope we aren’t a bowler short. I know Elgar can do a job as well but is he as good as Duminy with his bowling. Failing that surely Stephen Cook could have been given a chance to open the batting. It is a surprise they dropped Piedt, thought he did ok in the first two tests and we have already seen one of the wickets go to a spinner.
Bullscot wrote:
Could be good in space…But he had to be incredibly crap under the high ball for jurgen visser to have gotten such an extended run.
225/7 with about 15 overs left today not good at all England will be very happy. Seems like there has been some careless batting.
The words “the Ospreys offer resulted” is a clear indicator that a transfer fee was involved. The question was what kind of money was paid:
Some years ago the Bulls paid R1.2m as transfer fee for Bjorn Basson. As a guess make that amount for JJ as R1m. For easy calculation take the R to pound as 20. Then it cost Ospreys 50k pound as a top end value. For a low end value I will halve that amount.
Thus the transfer fee should be between 25k to 50k in pounds. Be in SA I have no idea if this is reasonable or not.
Best wishes for him.
14 @ dWeePer:
Thanks for the analysis that fee would be small change for a French or Aviva Premiership Club but think it may be quite a bit for the Ospreys especially if you add on the salary for the rest of the season about 4 months at a wild guesstimate of £10k a month then this could be costing them between £65k and £105k for a short term deal, wonder if they are hoping that he plays well enough to be offered a long term contract which would then make it more economical. Numbers of about £4million have been thrown about in terms of what a club up here would have as a yearly budget although the Welsh regions may have more. I mentioned ‘transfer fees’ because in many ways rugby has caught up with football and in some cases overtaken (like the use of technology) but as a football fan too (yes it is possible to like both sports 🙂 ) you hear all sorts of chats and news reports about players transfers etc yet it doesn’t seem to be something that is out in the mainstream in rugby and can’t understand why.
Ospreys beat Clermont Auvergne last night in the Champions cup, a good result for them as it puts them at the top of their pool 2 points ahead of Clermont and 6 points ahead of Exeter who have a game in hand and who they meet in the final round next weekend. So it is still possible for them to qualify for the knockout stages which means JJ may well be playing European rugby as well as PRO12 this season.
Kak sleg bowling by South Africa so far this morning,but we still pick up 2 wickets in the first hour.Great catch Dane Vilas,what a beauty that was.
The flat pitch tried its best… But its abundantly clear our batting still sucks.
Puma and Tassie,
this could be of interest to you?
This report just came out: The frequency of sexual activity of senior males depends on where they were born. Statistics just released from Statistics Canada and The United Nations B.O.H. Team, revealing that:
North American men between 60 and 70 years of age, will on average, have sex one to two times per week, (and a small number a lot more), whereas Japanese men, in exactly the same age group, will have sex only once or twice per year if they are lucky.
This has come as very upsetting news to both me and most of my buddies, as none of us had any idea we were Japanese.
It was not really expected that this very below average Protea team will win but it was also not expected that they will be humiliated so badly.
robzim wrote:
Didn’t we read here during the “epic” Newlands test how great they are and how they are back?
Maybe they made a deal with Bodi?
Can one really take any cricket result lately on face value?
What a bad result. Congratulations England on winning the series. They generally seemed to try to play attacking cricket so fair play to them whereas SA looked to be clinging on much of the time during the series.
@ cane: well thanks for that bit of profoundly insightful information Caner. I’ll start keeping a record from tomorrow and see how we blow(no pun intended). Mind if we compare notes going forward?
@ Bullscot: Yes, that was a piss-poor performance on our Proteas behalf. This side is probably the worst I’ve ever encountered. They look like losers. They play like losers. They lose. Why should we be surprised?
@Nortie
Do you think we could do with a foreign coach in cricket,even with the obsession our dear selectors have in using one of our own.I suspect Ray Jennings’ name must come up now,because surely CSA won’t keep flops Domingo,Charl Langeveldt and Claude Henderson and they must be confined to the history books now.
Interesting to note that when England won the Ashes for the first time in 18 back in 2005,it was an Aussie bowling coach,Troy Cooley,that masterminded the series win.What’s even more mind-boggling is that Rod March,also an Aussie,was the Director of the ECB.Now we find that they using Trevor Bayliss,an Aussie,as their head coach.
If CSA even attempt doing something like that then the “aarde sal oopskeur”,because they’ll rather have a few more years wasting in mediocrity before reality finally bites them.
Interesting according Cricinfo.com that Stiaan van Zyl averages 16.11 when playing as an opener and when he doesn’t he averages 66.34.Have to wonder what is wrong with the selectors if they can’t see where the man’s best position is!!!!
I don’t think there’s even anything wrong with any of Stiaan van Zyl,Elgar,Faf,Villas,Morris,Viljoen etc…they simply just not coached properly and/or are not playing in their preferred positions.
26 @ provincefan:
I still believe that in cricket the captain runs the show, not the coach.
So I think firstly we have a captaincy issue….since Smith retired we don’t have a strong leader.
Amla wasn’t a captain’s arse and AB seems more worried about the money he can make in T20 and how he isn’t sure he wants to play test cricket to fulfill the roll.
Hence we see and hear to much from Domingo and the selectors, who shouldn’t even get any airtime.
The whole structure stinks at the moment, and I’m afraid that the rugby is going the same way.
I don’t even have any interest in watching this crap on TV, might be going to Supersport Park on day 3 for the outing and company, well, that’s if we can even manage to last 3 days.
@ nortie:
@ 22
Barry Richards is quoted in a newspaper today to have said the pitch at Newlands played so easy even Stevie Wonder would have made a 50.
The Wanderers provided a fair contest and the results were there for all to see. Our team is just low on quality and there is no way that Domingo can make a test batsmen out of players like Bavuma, Stiaan etc while the best bowling coach in the world cannot transform Hardus Viljoen into a test bowler. Such players might every now and then get a few lucky runs or wickets if conditions are in their favour but will never perform consistently well at this level as they are just not good enough.
Richards also said that the level of Franchise cricket is the same as club cricket during his days and imo that says it all.
Paired with a captain that says “all hope is lost” during press conferences.
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