Mossie started his career at fullback and I personally think that with a little bit of work on his out of hand kicking he will be devastating joining the line from 15. WO will be ideal to launch him. I have left out Jean dV because he has not convinced since his return and is injury prone- not the kind of player you can build plays around, but if WO has to go, Jean dV will have to slot in. Juan de Jongh is a natural at 13.

Spies at 14 allows you to use him on the loop as decoy for Mossie or vice versa and you lose none of his strengths.
Potties at 8 compliments and completes a great loose trio if Juan regains form. If not, my man will be Duanne Vermeulen at 7 to retain the same style, size and balance, and only after him would I consider Deysel or Alberts as options. Schalk I will retain as an out and out impact player/reserve off the bench.

16. Bismarck
17. Beast
18. CJ
19. Langbek
20. Schalk Burger
21. Francois Hougard
22. Butch James

23. Gary Botha
24. BJ
25. F vd Merwe
26. Stegmann
27. Jano Vermaak
28. JP Pietersen
29. Zane Kirchner
30. G Aplon

Apparently, the Bulls adopt the approach of arriving over in Aus/NZ the Monday or Tues before their first S14 match.

Guess who has the influence in this Bok team?

the thing about sleep patterns is the best thing to do is wake up every day at the same time. if you are tired go to bed earlier – NEVER SLEEP IN. every time you oversleep or change your wake time (even by waking earlier than normal) you throw out your circadian rhythym.

what the boks did was pretty much the worst thing to adapt to a new time zone in my opinion.

John Smit overslept when he was supposed to be at a press conference and the journos even asked him why is he so sleepy

“Last weekend Springboks lock Bakkies Botha was suspended for nine weeks for headbutting Jimmy Cowan during the All Blacks’ 32-12 win at Eden Park, an act that has ended his Tri-Nations.

Thorn notes he usually only crosses paths with Botha “three or four” times in a match but admits there is a part of him that wishes the Bulls second rower was playing in tonight’s test at Westpac Stadium.

“He’s a really good guy. When you have an opponent that you respect and is at the top of his game, you want to play against him.

“He’s a good footballer mate, and often the focus is on the things he does but he is a big man and quite an athlete. People don’t realise he has got good speed and some real attributes.”

Off the field Thorn and Botha often seek each other out to discuss topics outside of rugby, such as their family life: “He loves a laugh and a bit of banter and so do I. And he’s got three children and I have four. So I am one up on him,” Thorn joked. “He’s a Christian and so am I. There are some similarities there.

“He is doing his stuff and I am doing mine. There are a lot of good guys among the Africans. I find them really good guys to talk to.”

While Thorn has been determined to rub out the ill-discipline aspects from his game, he is reluctant to judge Botha, a player with a reputation for making his share of trips to the judiciary, the latest for his headbutt on Cowan.

After the Auckland test, the two locks met briefly before Botha fronted the judiciary the following day and was sent back to South Africa. “I just wished him well. I just shook his hands as a player. Obviously that was in the judiciary hands. It is tough. You do things in the moment and sometimes you regret them. But, they are done, and there you go.”

I dont believe the Boks have to ‘come back from 20pts’ at all, like this article suggests – they will be considerably stronger today, the attitude will be spot on and this Test can go either way. Both teams have glaring weaknesses to counter-balance World class strengths so it all comes down to which team can exploit the opposition holes to their best ability.

All to play for.

I wouldnt even bother with any good sportsmanship there, its effort wasted. Every single post involves ‘Kiwis/McCaw cheating’, always has had. Leave the choirboy in peace so he can continue to hit the high notes while he still can.

None of lineout, scrum, or fitness worry me in the slightest. They are all good enough at a fundamental level. The ABs are good in those dimensions but only an idiot would suggest that the ABs have any substantial advantage in any of those areas. If both teams are firing on all cylinders then the Boks are in good shape there.

The game plan topic is a little more interesting. The problem with the game plan discussion is that you have to take a view on whether last week the AB game plan was so fabulous that a great defensive team is made to look stupid, or whether a very poor defensive effort made a certain game plan look brilliant. Of course there is a bit of both.

Additionally, as relates to game plan, the defensive team (Boks) gets to make more adjustments and be less surprised for the second encounter.

I am convinced that a defensive step-up on the Bok side will have all the AB supporters revisiting their theories about game plans.

It has become de rigueur for losers to come off the field saying that they did not execute the basics. I am pretty sure it’s Richie’s turn to sing that song. When he does the question in our minds should be how the Boks stopped them from doing so.

“But the key question is very simple: Irrespective of personnel, game plan, AB genius etc if the Boks keep 15 men on the field for 80 minutes, get their tackle stats into the normal range, and improve nothing else from last week, they are likely to win this game.”

Totally correct and totally possible. Will it happen, we wont know till the final whistle, but if they don’t what are the key possibilities to them losing two on the trot?

Can they reduce their miss tackle count in the face of fast and determined counter attacks and quick ball?
Is five days enough to improve their overall fitness by about 25%? Is the same length of time sufficient to re-think and implement new game plan beyond what they have effectively been playing for the last couple of seasons?
Will it be enough time to address line out and scrum issues?
Is long enough to recover from the actual game last week and front an even more eager team this week who really want to put the boks away?

We’ll know in about 6 hours.