Year: 2012

John Smit has suggested that Stormers captain Schalk Burger is the right man to take over the captaincy of the Springboks.

“I have been involved in talks about my successor since 2008. There might be a young player who performs well and is awarded the captaincy, but my money is on Schalk. (more…)

The Boks won the second test 36 – 27 against England and clinched the series. This is what Heyneke Meyer, Jean De Villiers and Francois Hougaard had to say about the game:

Heyneke Meyer

“I was very happy with the first half, we just lost our momentum. In that period we showed glimpses of what we are capable of and where we want to go as a team. That is the type of rugby I am looking for the team to play. Injuries played a part in the second half, but I don’t want to make excuses. We made a few unnecessary mistakes from set phase, but credit to England for the way they played in the second half. Towards the end we had several players off and mostly young guys on the field, so Jean did well to keep the players together and calm.

“We lost our way a bit in the second half because our first-phase play wasn’t good enough and we made mistakes that allowed England back into the game, but we played really great rugby in the first half.

“Injuries are part of rugby so I don’t want to complain about it, but the one England try was scored when Juandre was down, and the other one was the result of an overthrow at a lineout. England worked hard to come back at us but some of the points we gave away were unnecessary.

“Lambie went off injured and it was the second time in the space of a week that we have lost a fullback. Frans Steyn can play fullback but he hasn’t done so for a while and it required a bit of an adjustment. But we will take the win.
(more…)

Former South Africa coach Nick Mallet has expressed concerns that new coach Heyneke Meyer’s philosophies could impede on some of the players’ creativity, (more…)