SA latest – Smit back at tighthead
9 Mar 2011
Keo.co.za brings you news from South Africa’s Super Rugby franchises.
Smit back at tighthead -John Smit will start his first Super Rugby game this season at tighthead prop when the Sharks take on the Rebels in Melbourne on Friday.
Smit replaces Jannie du Plessis in the front row and takes over the captaincy from outside centre Stefan Terblanche.
The other change to the pack sees No 8 Ryan Kankowski promoted from the bench, which sees Keegan Daniel move to openside flank and Jacques Botes drops to the reserves.
Wing Odwa Ndungane has recovered from his light concussion to make the run-on side this weekend, while speedster Lwazi Mvovo replaces the injured JP Pietersen.
Sharks – 15 Louis Ludik, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Stefan Terblanche, 12 Meyer Bosman, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Patrick Lambie, 9 Charl McLeod, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Keegan Daniel, 5 Alistair Hargreaves, 4 Steven Sykes, 3 John Smit (c), 2 Bismarck du Plessis, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Bench: 16 Craig Burden, 17 Jannie du Plessis, 18 Anton Bresler, 19 Jacques Botes, 20 Conrad Hoffmann, 21 Jacques-Louis Potgieter, 22 Adrian Jacobs.
Sharks consider London fixture – The Crusaders are planning to stage their home match against the Sharks in London, but they will need the Durban franchise to agree to the change in venue.
Following the earthquake in Christchurch, the Crusaders have moved to Nelson as a temporary base. Since the disaster, there has been a move to stage a game in London in order to help their financial situation.
According to The Witness, Sharks CEO Brian van Zyl has been approached by his Crusaders counterpart and the Durban franchise is weighing up the pros and cons. The fixture is the Sharks’ fourth and final
tour game before they return to South Africa, so to travel all the way to London would place them at a disadvantage.
Both the Crusaders and Sharks stand to make money from the proposed fixture at Twickenham, but Van Zyl said a ‘rugby decision’ rather than a financial one would be made. The decision will be announced following the Sharks’ game against the Rebels on Friday.
Brussow back in action – Heinrich Brussow will make his return to Super Rugby against the Lions this weekend.
Sias Ebersohn will start at flyhalf while Andries Strauss has been named captain for the Cheetahs’ clash with the Lions. Naas Olivier has been dropped to the bench after some poor performances in the first three rounds.
Coach Naka Drotske has made several other changes, with Riaan Viljoen slotting in at fullback, flanks Philip van der Walt and Brussow introduced to the back row and Martin Muller coming in at lock.
Cheetahs – 15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Philip Snyman, 13 Robert Ebersohn, 12 Andries Strauss (c), 11 Rayno Benjamin, 10 Sias Ebersohn, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Ashley Johnson, 7 Philip van der Walt, 6 Heinrich Brussow, 5 Wilhelm Steenkamp, 4 Martin Muller, 3 WP Nel, 2 Ryno Barnes, 1 Coenie Oosthuizen.
Subs: 16 Skipper Badenhorst, 17 Kobus Calldo, 18 Kabamba Floors, 19 Francois Uys, 20 Tewis de Bruyn, 21 Naas Olivier, 22 Fabien Juries.
536 Comments
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9 Mar 2011, 22:04 pm
@wooden spoon(wooden spoon)-450:
Not at all !!
I am trying to point out that Smit did not win WC 07, BIL ,3N etc all by himself as you naively believe.
I do say that his poor form and his quest to get to 100 games cost us big time last year. Management also needs to shoulder blame here for picking a player woefully out of shape and form.
We cannot afford these same mistakes WC 2011 !!
9 Mar 2011, 22:04 pm
the Maestro PdV moved Smit to tighthead in 2008 because he couldn’t in all honesty keep Bissy out of the team anymore as he was & still is the no.1 hooker in the world!
This is all part of the legacy of john smit, some may like to sugarcoat it in their guppified halucinatory ferver but it is all there. Wyatt Crockett mangled the ‘aura’ senselessly at the AMI stadium last year to a point where black panther who was in the stands that day came back & said he’d witnessed turbo-reverse live for the 1st time in his life!
When is it comes to smit the cliches of ‘players don’t pick themselves coaches do’ are bandied about but let JdV play and insults like ‘donkey’ fly about and none of these ‘decent’ and ‘mature’ Bok
_Lovers ever have a word to CHECK their guppy loving brethren!
That is hypocrisy 101 for you.
They reek of entitlement that they even reckon they can tell one how to respond to their insults!
9 Mar 2011, 22:06 pm
you wouldn’t know a hero from a villain if you happened to trip over him, thats the difference between real hero’s and real villains, thicker than 2 bricks hero worshiping fool.
you into WC’s as your level of hero worship status then you got hero’s and villains all fck’d up good and solid under that stupefied science worshiping noggin of yours.
9 Mar 2011, 22:07 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-452:
Eloquently put !!
9 Mar 2011, 22:07 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-452: reckon there’s more important things in life to get your knickers in a knot about… like world peace and health, etc.
Don’t let Smit bug you.
9 Mar 2011, 22:09 pm
@wooden spoon(wooden spoon)-450:
Wham!
9 Mar 2011, 22:11 pm
yip so you say, so you say, but we both know who the real hero-worshipper is, maybe not.
ok, gotta go, bash away.
9 Mar 2011, 22:14 pm
Sharks just better hope and pray this little experiment works out Friday vs Rebels because if it don’t there gonna be some seriously worried heads around Sharks and Boks management strategists.
9 Mar 2011, 22:16 pm
like I said, your level of understanding hero’s from villains is paltry idiotic, but if you think you know one from the other, I gotta tell you just for your sake that you emphatically don’t. And that is absolute fact whether you able to swallow it or not.
9 Mar 2011, 22:17 pm
bugged? Hehehe relax charlie.
Are you not concerned with world peace & health?
9 Mar 2011, 22:26 pm
oh right, so you are the great arbiter of who is a hero and who is a villain?
i dont really give a fk to be quite honest, i simply asked who raised the 2007 trophy.
9 Mar 2011, 22:31 pm
ou doos flip flops from hero to hero week in and week out… but he does have his one scapegoat from each team who is to blame for all the world’s strife… so some consistency at least…
Bulls – Du Preez
Sharks – Smit
Stormers – Burger
very narrow minded of ou doos.
9 Mar 2011, 22:32 pm
No you didn’t merely raise that question you hailed someone as a national hero, and in your eyes perhaps he is, so depends who’s raising what as being of hero worshiping value, to you its fluking WC’s when they are just puppets on some grandiose illusory stage, but if thats the level of importance you place on your estimation of a hero, good and well, it ain’t mine. I do happen to know a real hero from a fake, even if you don’t or can’t.
9 Mar 2011, 22:33 pm
funnily enough all 3 of those players were Jake’s picks…
No wonder.
9 Mar 2011, 22:34 pm
so who lifted the RWC 2007 trophy. Have we established that yet?
9 Mar 2011, 22:35 pm
some here like to shout bantu biko’s name in vain yet one gets the idea they have no clue what the man stood for…very interesting.
9 Mar 2011, 22:37 pm
i did raise the question initially in response to your personal highly skewed line of reasoning. the question is a simple one, if he is such a poor player, how in gods name did he managed to garner all these awards?
on the question of hero worshipping our team, far as i know we all want the springboks to win, and if some want to take potshots at the guys that have done well for them, then its only fair they get a few back, of hoe?
you say you know a real hero from a fake, and that i dont or cant, but how?
that sort of narrow-minded attitude is every bit as bad, if not worse, than hero-worship.
9 Mar 2011, 22:41 pm
these people are fallible, all of them, the problem with doting blind eyed supporters and hero worshipers is that they place certain individuals on pedestals way beyond their human capacity or even their true value, to the extent that blind eyed hero worship becomes infatuated foolishness when reality should dawn and stare them in the face.
In my estimation Burger is not the right captain for Stormers, he could perhaps still play an effective role as a wrecking ball loose cannon in a setup that throws all common sense out the window, but captain he ain’t. Smit is past his effective capacity as either an efficient tight head or loose head and is only 2nd best hooker at best, and is only in the team for his so called unsurpassed leadership value. FdP is hyped up way beyond his actual genius level, to the extent that he’s even started believing it himself.
9 Mar 2011, 22:46 pm
thabo mbeki lifted the world cup
9 Mar 2011, 22:49 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-466:
well i dispute that, and believe i do know what he stood for, i suspect ET knows the comment was made in jest rather than disrespectfully, but if I actually did offend you or ET i apologise sincerely.
9 Mar 2011, 22:51 pm
Its hero worship status that effects the rot to set in, seems you cannot even see it. If Saffas were level headed down to earth common sense kind of human beings then one could forgive them for placing certain fallible people on pedestals, but when they are so far out their tree worshiping people way beyond their actual levels of competency, then you wonder why the cricketers or the rugby teams like Bulls choked this past weekend, or how we go from hero’s in 2009 to zero’s in 2010.
Its a very simple equation for anyone with any common scientific type of reasoning and sense. Saffas should simply stop doting on individuals as supreme super human infallible wonders of creation beyond their human frailties, and realize that what was today a hero can just as easily turn into a zero or a villain tomorrow, or isn’t this what Bryan Habana has become in all your doting hero worshiping eyes of late?
The Hansie Cronje syndrome, saffas are not very astute hero worshiping public at the best of times, so better they stop hero worshiping at all, its far safer that way.
9 Mar 2011, 22:53 pm
i tell you what is hypocracy tho is those selfsame white folk, or as ET experessed it ‘your lot’, who express their disgust now so righteously with all the pious mawksihness of pope john paul hisself, were actually the instruments of that very repression. these big freedom fighters were in the bladdy SADF, then they had their road to damascus moment, wtf do you need revolutionaries for after the revolution? Its good that they seen the errors of their ways, but wtf are they to lecture to anyone?
9 Mar 2011, 22:54 pm
some may like to sugarcoat it in their guppified halucinatory ferver but it is all there. Wyatt Crockett mangled the ‘aura’ senselessly at the AMI stadium last year to a point where black panther who was in the stands that day came back & said he’d witnessed turbo-reverse live for the 1st time in his life!
the guppies are the biggest hypocrites around, guppified hypocrisy is their claim to fame.
9 Mar 2011, 23:00 pm
no offence taken…
9 Mar 2011, 23:01 pm
who you talking about freedom fighters in the Sadf, who you actually referring to, spit it out man, what road to Damascus moment you talking about, I never had such ridiculous a thing.
9 Mar 2011, 23:02 pm
i’m not talking about you, but if the boot fits wear it.
9 Mar 2011, 23:06 pm
Now we got all the Sharky happy clappers here telling everyone the man is LEGENDARY, therefore he gonna walk on water once again.
skop you are a legend – give it to those aura worshipers.
9 Mar 2011, 23:11 pm
@ Grant 10
Grant 10 please dont leave the blog for a long period just because of what was thrown around on this thread here today.
Nevermind it.
9 Mar 2011, 23:12 pm
so who you talking about, why you mention it
people are people, villain today hero tomorrow, and vice versa. Saul of Tarsus might have had a Damascus moment to stop persecuting those he feared and hated and became one of the persecuted instead, its happened many a time through history, even our own Vlok or De Kock or wie nog who kissed the feet of his enemies at the TRC, whether it was sincere or not only he or his conscience could tell.
Its not really up to anyone to judge anyone else in entirety because one mans freedom fighter is another’s terrorist and all the rest of the garbage that goes along with it. Its simply politics, and politics will always remain hypocrisy any way anyone ever wanna look at it. Like John Smit or Jake White vs Luke Watson, they all just products and puppets of their environment and each one gotta play out his part, whether that part be hero or villain for today and something else tomorrow.
9 Mar 2011, 23:17 pm
your pal who decided to throw a unholy righteos fanny wobble higher up.
well exactly right, so if ppl are just ppl, what you going on about heros and villians for and who can tell them apart? surely there aspects of both, smit was wrong to abuse his position and call watson a cancer, but watson was by no means a saint in the whole affair, which fundamentally revolved around non-selection. Far as I know Smit raised the trophy in RWC07, which i liked a great deal, i’m not really that bothered if either him or luke are going to be the next albert schweitzer.
9 Mar 2011, 23:20 pm
Out to fetch a son
gooie naand
9 Mar 2011, 23:23 pm
which pal threw a fanny wobble, you referring to Grant, nothing wrong with Grant, he gets a bit emotional, as so do many, but his heart is in the right place, and bottom line, thats actually what counts when all is said and done. Grant is OK, and blogs are not the correct place for anyone to judge anyone else, ever.
9 Mar 2011, 23:23 pm
Out for now
9 Mar 2011, 23:25 pm
yes i know, but i aint going to take that nonsense, good night.
9 Mar 2011, 23:29 pm
looks like spurs are going through…
9 Mar 2011, 23:33 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-485: indeed.
9 Mar 2011, 23:45 pm
Looks like G10 pistol-whipped poor old Cab tonight.
10 Mar 2011, 00:06 am
@cab(cab)-470:
I was the first to react to that comment and I have to say I was not offended by it because I did not perceive it to be disrespectful even if taken out of the context of your post.
You were clearly just stirring the sauce and that is why I attempted to weaken your ‘force’ by commenting of the silliness of ‘freeing’ a dead man.
Unfortunately far too many guys read you totally incorrectly, but I am not sure that is your ‘fault’ or theirs and that often results in these misplaced petty squabbles.
To me that was much ado about nothing and it is a pity I only become aware of it so late in this day, having been busy since I posted to you .
10 Mar 2011, 00:12 am
This is like a soapie.
The Days of Our Lives.
10 Mar 2011, 00:28 am
@Transformation(Transformation)-452: old man panther never needed any excuse to stick the boot into a SA player, particularly not one who led his side to a 3-0 whitewash over his team wrecking the fossil Thorn in the process.
As I see it, most SA posters here who criticise Smit do so because he had some beef with Luke Watson, they don’t want him him playing tighthead because they don’t want him playing at all and will only be at peace once he retires (but then he’ll probably have a key coaching position anyway).
10 Mar 2011, 00:36 am
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-490:
That is one point of view but there are much more than that one.
A very strong view is that he does not presently, and for a while now, quite play up to the standards shown by others in those three positions that they claim he can play. Worse still there is evidence on a weekly basis going on 3 seasons now to be called on.
10 Mar 2011, 00:39 am
LEGEND!
10 Mar 2011, 02:51 am
IMO Smit is a good captain, but he needs to be fit and in form to be selected as bok captain. Smit is not a pop either, and Bismark is playing very well. I am not sure who should be bok captain in his place
Not Burger or Matfield. Fdp is better concentrating on his game
Not Jdv
Joe Van Niekerk maybe?
10 Mar 2011, 02:57 am
Or Luke Watson maybe?
perish the thought, pretend I never ventured to mention such hideous blasphemy
10 Mar 2011, 03:01 am
@skopiskoobidoo(ilanjo)-494:
Skoppie its ok, its your opinion I think a captain must wear many hats
He must be a dam good player
Must be able to read the game well change and adapt if necessary
Me must have all the players support Watson may not have that, I am not sure
And must have the support and confidence of the coaching staff.
and have the fans support
10 Mar 2011, 03:02 am
@skopiskoobidoo(ilanjo)-494:
Maybe Brussow alberts and Joe ?
10 Mar 2011, 03:04 am
But Joe Van Niekerk could very well be a very good compromise, and maybe even a masterstroke killing two birds with one stone in eradicating the soft head and week knees of his colossus 8th man Spies, and at same time solving his captaincy riddle where he don’t have space in his run on squad for his captain in chief the likable plodder, if ever PdV found himself in dire circumstances, because the last person he would turn to at this late stage of proceedings would be Luke Watson even if he has been players captain over English captain Lewis Moody at his club.
10 Mar 2011, 03:09 am
@skopiskoobidoo(ilanjo)-497:
Skoppie you know my opinion of spies, so I agree there 100 % about solving 2 problems Joe like Vermeulen is a true #8
Yes he does captain the english captain very interesting
Different bunch of players there at Bath skoppie.
Also Joe is additional lineout option but Luke would not be
10 Mar 2011, 03:09 am
A toothless, tunnel-visioned, drooling, old Chihauhau ‘bakkie builder’ informing others they have no clue … this place never ceases to amaze me… in a Jerry Springer kind of way!
Smit proved last S14 after handing Tiaan Liebenberg his arse on a platter that he is at worst still the next best hooker in RSA… that’s before one considers his experience, success and everything else he’s achieved…
Anyone suggesting he does not have a place in the ’22′ at least off the bench… yes test rugby is ’22 man 85min rugby’… is not worth debating with…
10 Mar 2011, 03:12 am
@bryce_in_oz(bryce_in_oz)-499:
I said if he was fit and in form he is a very good player
Bismark is a better option
Yes maybe in the 22 but who captains if he is on the bench?
again just my opinion
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