Springboks
The South African Rugby Union has confirmed that Rohan Janse van Rensburg will replace his Blue Bulls team mate Jan Serfontein in the South Africa Under-20 squad for the Junior World Championship (JWC).
How will Heyneke Meyer fare in 2013?
Well there are a lot of surprises in the mid-year appointments this year, and I’m not sure how much can be read into them.
We are all well aware of the host of South African rugby players who are plying their trade outside of South Africa. For this article we venture into the land of make belief and choose a squad made up entirely of players with South African connections playing in the current season’s RaboDirect Pro12 competition. – The ‘Raboboks’
A group of 38 players, featuring eight players who were not part of the first camp, will assemble in Durban for the second Springbok training camp before the final squad for the Castle Lager Incoming Series is named early next month.
The Sharks and the Springboks have received a blow with the news that wing JP Pietersen will be sidelined for an extended period.
Europcar South Africa has joined the South African Rugby Union (SARU) sponsors’ family as the official car rental supplier to SARU, its national squads and national teams, it was announced on Tuesday.
It was the Springboks’ best performance of the tour. A real confidence booster after the shock defeat against the University side but at the same time a game that had a negative impact in more than one way. It showed New Zealand the danger of allowing the Springboks space to play the Craven-linking pattern. Not that New Zealand was unaware of the Springbok style but it re-affirmed the necessity of keeping the Springboks on the back foot.
The Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) have announced that will be raising funds for former player, Tinus Linee at next week’s Super Rugby match between the Stormers and the Reds at Newlands.
Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett believes the reason for the exodus of South Africa’s top players is due to players putting their careers at risk without proper compensation.
Edinburgh – Scotland have included nine uncapped players in a squad of 31 for next month’s quadrangular international tournament in South Africa.
Samoa have named a very strong squad – comprising just two locally based players – for their tour of South Africa next month.
Scott Johnson, the current head coach of the Scotland team has been appointed Director of Rugby for Scottish Rugby. The post has been described by Scottish Rugby as “absolutely integral to Scotland’s standing on the world stage in the next decade and beyond.”
Today we received an open letter to Jurie Roux, SARU CEO, lamenting the fact that the design and production of the nationally important new Springbok Museum in Cape Town was awarded to a UK (English) design company.
A number of years ago I learnt and realised first hand how apathetic South Africans are when it comes to doing something for this sport we love so much, rugby in South Africa. I learnt that SARU can do anything they want, there will be a few muted murmers and a lot of around the braai chatter about how these fools run OUR game, but nobody does anything about it and eventually these fools at SARU just laugh at us… seeing us all as mere consumers of the game, not de facto stakeholders in the game.
Suffice to say that I am deeply concerned about how SARU runs rugby in South Africa and for South African interests.
Without further a do, here is the exact contents of the letter, take a look for yourself:
London’s Olympic Stadium will host five games at the 2015 Rugby World Cup which is being held across 13 venues.
Former Springbok Tinus Linee has been diagnosed with the same disease suffered by former Springbok Joost van der Westhuizen, it was reported on Tuesday.
Ruan Steenkamp, the Vodacom Blue Bulls flanker, was on Thursday named as captain of South Africa’s Under-20 squad for the IRB Junior World Championship, which will be staged during June in France.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) today announced that 15 players, including exciting youngsters such as Eben Etzebeth, Marcell Coetzee, Juan de Jongh and Pat Lambie and world stars such as Jean de Villiers, Tendai Mtawarira and Bismarck du Plessis, have been awarded Springbok contracts for 2013.
Noticeably, conversation about the 1956 tour always detour to the match against the New Zealand Universities. Historically, it was the first time a New Zealand University team played against an international touring side but this match is synonymous with the 1956 tour for other reasons. The fact that the Universities team won is also not really the main reason why Kiwi’s still rate this match as the best match of the tour. It was the manner in which the Universities team won that delighted the New Zealand rugby fraternity. All the good football came from the home side. The backs demonstrated opportunism, sensible anticipation and application while the pack totally dominated proceedings. The game is nevertheless mostly remembered as the game of the great Ron Jardon ‘try-that-wasn’t’. A great howl went up in protest when Jardon was called back after a spectacular 65 meter run through almost the entire Springbok team (listen to Winston McCarthy highlights of the match here) and old-timers almost without exception still mention the Jardon try to this day whenever the 1956 tour are under discussion.
Key DHL Stormers forwards Eben Etzebeth, Deon Fourie, De Kock Steenkamp and Rynhardt Elstadt have extended their playing contracts with Western Province Rugby.
Springbok winger JP Pietersen will head to Japan for the next two seasons but will still be available to play for the Springbok team for a large part of the international season.
Dawie Theron, the South African Under-20 coach, has made several changes for the team’s final match on Saturday against Argentina Under-20 in Buenos Aires.
The young South Africans will be hoping to bounce back after suffering a 27-42 defeat in their second tour match on Tuesday in Corrientes.
Cheetahs and Bok pivot Johan Goosen’s knee operation to repair damage to his knee ligament was a success, and he was present at the Cheetahs training session on Monday.
The SA Under-20 training squad to face Argentina Under-20 in their second tour match on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 shows thirteen changes from the starting team that won their tour opener 26-3 on Saturday evening in Corrientes.
Sharks scrumhalf Cobus Reinach has been called up to the Springbok training camp in Cape Town following a slight injury to Jano Vermaak.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has revealed that he will never omit Bulls captain Pierre Spies from his squad.
Blitzbokke (0) 24 / 19 (12) New Zealand (Final Score)
South Africa and New Zealand did battle in the Final of the HSBC Sevens World Series – Tokyo tournament at 09:30 SA Time.
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was broadcast LIVE on SuperSport 6 on TV in SA.
Springbok and Stormers stalwart Schalk Burger’s career has been put on hold, after it was revealed on Thursday that he is suffering from a life-threatening disease.
The Burger family issued a brief media statement in which they revealed that the 29-year-old loose forward has bacterial meningitis.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has confirmed a 34-man squad on Thursday for the SA Under-20 tour to Argentina in April.
Current captain Jean de Villiers will join the oldest living Springbok skipper, 83-year-old Des van Jaarsveldt, and 40 others in Cape Town on Wednesday, to mark the countdown to the opening of a new rugby museum.
Andries Bekker, the most-capped DHL Stormers player in the history of Super Rugby, will move to Japanese club Kobelco Steelers at the conclusion of the 2013 Vodacom Super Rugby season.
The Sharks Springbok brothers Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis are considering a move away from Super Rugby in France where they would play in the Top14.
We take a look at Springbok participation in the Tri-Nations (now expanded and renamed The Rugby Championship).
The Springboks took part in the Southern Hemisphere’s premier international competition just five years after being readmitted to international competition in the 90’s.
After my tribute to Jan Ellis I thought I just have to write something about the man who was a big part of Jan’s success as a Springbok rugby player, Piet Greyling.
Currie Cup-winning Transvaal captain in 1971 and 1972, former Springbok flanker Piet Greyling, was arguably one of the best, but certainly one of the toughest.
The picture below shows Piet Greyling with his Transvaal side who got a share of the Currie Cup for the first time in 19 years – having previously won it in 1952 – when they shared the cup with Northern Transvaal in an epic final and controversial 14-14 draw at Ellis Park in 1971. The next year Greyling led his Transvaal side to a 25-19 win over Eastern Transvaal at Pam Brink Stadium in Springs to win the cup with the help of Gerald Bosch who dropped the winning points in the final minutes. It was back in 1972, before the Currie Cup final against Eastern Transvaal in Springs that the former Bok captain uttered these famous words to his Transvaal team-mates: “Eighty minutes of agony for an eternity of pleasure.”
With the news this week that Springbok great, Jan Ellis, passed away at the age of 71, I just had to write this tribute to Jan.
Jan Ellis personifies Springbok rugby for me. It has been said that as humans we think in pictures. When we think of something we see a picture of some sorts and this picture can differ from one person to the next, which is why we sometimes voice the same words but come up with different understanding or meaning. The best communicators are those who can create clear and vivid pictures in the mind of his listeners.
When I think of Springbok rugby I see Jan Ellis. Hard, uncompromising, fast with a touch of artistic moodiness and flair but with relentless motivation to succeed based on a staunch work ethic and absolute conviction of what is right and wrong – that is Jan Ellis in a nutshell, for me.
So, I don’t see all that, I just see pictures of Jan Ellis flashing through my mind.
(see the photo gallery I’ve created of Jan Ellis here).
The analogy between the Springboks and Jan Ellis, for me, came along probably because I had so many pictures of Jan Ellis when I started with my sampling of rugby pictures in 1970. I was born in Windhoek, South West Africa (now Namibia) and Jan was SWA’s second Springbok, the first being Sias Swart.