Mighty Mujati will lend Boks bite
24 May 2011
JON CARDINELLI writes that Brian Mujati’s work-rate at the scrum and around the park make him a prime candidate for World Cup selection.
2009 was a watershed year for the Zimbabwean-born prop. After two disappointing seasons with the Stormers, and an uninspiring start with the Springboks in 2008, he left South Africa for a club career in England. Most critics questioned Mujati’s decision to play in the northern competitions, as the forward-oriented nature would surely expose his scrumming weakness.
But Mujati underwent a transformation at Northampton and what was once his weakness became his strength. He’s developed to the point where he plays a key role in the most powerful scrum in Europe. Northampton qualified for the European Cup and Premiership play-offs, and those in the know will tell you the Saints’ pack is largely responsible for that relative success.
Mujati must be in the Bok picture for the upcoming Tri-Nations as well as the World Cup. His all-round form is better than that of any tighthead playing for the five South African franchises, and his introduction to the national side would inject some much-needed menace and purpose into a plodding Bok scrum.
The Boks battled to dominate during Jake White’s tenure, but the reign of Peter de Villiers has seen the scrum flit between average and embarrassing. De Villiers’s bizarre selections haven’t helped matters, and he has recently admitted that erred in moving captain John Smit from hooker to tighthead in 2008.
Jannie du Plessis seems to be everybody’s favourite to wear No 3 at the World Cup, although it’s hard to argue for his selection on the basis of performance. Since moving to the Sharks, he hasn’t developed his game to the point where he dominates opposition looseheads. He’s held his own at both Super Rugby and national level, and perhaps it’s time to trust in somebody who can hurt the opposition.
As a tighthead, Smit has struggled at the scrum, but he did lend the Boks some bite at the breakdown. Du Plessis may contribute around the ruck but is never going to be a ball-carrier of any great prowess. The simple fact of the matter is that his ball skills in contact are shocking. In the modern game, you can’t afford to pick a prop that makes so many handling errors.
Mujati has impressed for Northampton scrum, and has been a menace with ball in hand. Last week’s European Cup final showcased his aggressive nature in contact, and given that the Boks will always be a team that looks to dominate the collisions as a means to setting up victory, picking Mujati should be a no-brainer.
Favouring Mujati could see Du Plessis dropping out of the 22 altogether, as CJ van der Linde is valued as the ideal substitute due to his ability to play both tighthead and loosehead. But on that point, Van der Linde has plenty to prove after some dismal showings for the Stormers in 2011.
Van der Linde has never been the same player since he returned from Leinster. Backline players struggle when they don’t get the opportunity to settle in one position. Van der Linde hasn’t settled in one position at the Stormers and has thus battled for consistency. He hit a new low last week when he was outscrummed by the Blues’ Tom McCartney, a hooker who was filling in at loosehead for the injured Tony Woodcock.
There is certainly a gap for Mujati in the Springbok set-up, but he can play more than a secondary role. There will be a focus on set-piece dominance as the World Cup enters the knock-out stage, a period that usually sees expansive strategies shelved for more conservative alternatives. If the Boks hope to win these battles, they need to pick the best available players, and at the moment there isn’t a better all-round tighthead option than Brian Mujati.
466 Comments
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24 May 2011, 19:09 pm
What a peaceful thread without ET HG
24 May 2011, 19:34 pm
Interesting to read in tonight’s paper that it was none other than Boy George who outted Ryan Giggs as the super-injunction applicant.
Frankly, I don’t know where he finds the time – is there no end to his relentless search for publicity ?!
24 May 2011, 19:37 pm
Sounds like Mujati ain’t even interested in representing SA so what’s all the fuss about?
They made him most welcome before didn’t they just? Circulating some cockamamie bullshit stories about his father confiscating a colonial farm or some such rugby relevant issue.
Sounds like he far prefer to get a British passport and maybe represent England instead… so next time they chuck the baby with the bathwater perhaps they consider the long term circumstances following the event.
Front row should be represented by the following in form players
Greyling, Oosthuizen, Beast, Blaauw, Vd Merwe
Bismark, Strauss, Chili, Liebenberg, Fourie
Nel, Mujati, Kruger, Van Staden
24 May 2011, 20:25 pm
G10
but wouldn’t u rather opine after judging with your own eyes rather than some plonkers that you might otherwise dismiss ?
UK media often trip over themselves in desperation to create heroes out of very little evidence and the exotic the better – Mujati certainly fits that bill.
To be fair, his press has not been consistently great until the end of the season. Which raises some suspicion.
24 May 2011, 20:39 pm
Two days later Mujati’s
‘nightmare’ became reality
and he found himself the
centre of a press furore. A
London-based newspaper
called The Zimbabwean
accused Joseph Mujati–
Brian’s father – of having
grabbed the Inyazura farm of
Marthinus‘Tienie’ Martin
five years earlier. The writer
was at pains to point out that
Brian was not involved, but
the damage had been done.
‘This is a shabby attempt to smear the name of a
Springbok rugby player on
what should be one of the
most memorable days of his
life,’ raged Andy Colquhoun, Saru strategic
communications manager, in
response to the story.‘There
are no allegations against
Brian, and an attempt to visit
the alleged sins of a father
on to a son is beneath
contempt, however it may be
dressed up.’
Though Martin was clearly
still angry by the memory of
the day he was forcibly
evicted from his farm, he
stressed his support for
Brian:‘I don’t want to mess
the youngster’s career up,’
he told the newspaper.
It was an awful way in which to make a Test debut.
i bet you Heavens Game writes for the Zimbabwean.
24 May 2011, 22:07 pm
ok….
who killed this thread?
24 May 2011, 22:24 pm
Who killed Davey Moore
How come he died an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not I,” says the referee
“Don’t point your finger at me
I could’ve stopped it in the eighth
An’ maybe kept him from his terrible fate
But the crowd would’ve booed, I’m sure
At not gettin’ their money’s worth
It’s too bad he had to go
But there was a pressure on me too, you know
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”
Who killed Davey Moore
How come he died an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not us,” says the angry crowd
Whose screams filled the arena loud
“It’s too bad he died that night
But we just like to see a good fight
We didn’t mean for him t’ meet his death
We just meant to see some sweat
There ain’t nothing wrong in that
It wasn’t us that made him fall
No, you can’t blame us at all”
Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not me,” says his manager
Puffing on a big cigar
“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to tell
I always thought that he was well
It’s too bad for his wife an’ kids he’s dead
But if he was sick, he should’ve said
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”
Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not me,” says the gambling man
With his ticket stub still in his hand
“It wasn’t me that knocked him down
My hands never touched him none
I didn’t commit no ugly sin
Anyway, I put money on him to win
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”
Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not me,” says the boxing writer
Pounding print on his old typewriter
Sayin’, “Boxing ain’t to blame
There’s just as much danger in a football game”
Sayin’, “Fistfighting is here to stay
It’s just the old American way
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”
Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?
“Not me,” says the man whose fists
Laid him low in a cloud of mist
Who came here from Cuba’s door
Where boxing ain’t allowed no more
“I hit him, yes, it’s true
But that’s what I am paid to do
Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say ‘kill’
It was destiny, it was God’s will”
Who killed Davey Moore
How come he died an’ what’s the reason for?
24 May 2011, 22:26 pm
Mujati is not such a powerful scrummager.He also will need to show what he can do in the Super15
24 May 2011, 23:44 pm
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-457:
The genius was 70 today
let’s hope he can find inspiration for another masterpiece.
Long live Bobby.
24 May 2011, 23:53 pm
Check this greatest poetic genius of the 20th century@Robzim(Robzim)-459:
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is one of the most important singer-songwriters of the era of recorded, commercially available music. His lyrics are a yardstick against which aspiring young singer-songwriters measure themselves. He broke seemingly unbreakable rules, and he did so with stalwart passion and uncompromising honesty. He incorporated musical traditions from a diverse range of genres, from blues, country and gospel to jazz, swing and musical theatre, as well as integrating rock & roll and rockabilly with traditional celtic folk music.
In a career that has so far spanned nearly fifty years, Dylan has released more than 30 studio albums (11 achieving platinum status and 11 gold). He became a reluctant spokesperson for a disaffected baby-boomer/protest generation, a world renowned poet/lyricist, and a pop-culture icon representing social justice, peaceful protest, and worn denim. Dylan was named by Time magazine as one of the “100 most influential people of the 20th century”; he won Grammys, Oscars and Golden Globe awards for his music; Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No.2 on its list of “Greatest Artists of All Time” (behind the Beatles); and he has even been nominated many times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and received an honorary Pulitzer Prize for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”
Bruce Springsteen said of Dylan: “Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual”.
His songwriting has seen him inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Because of his lyrical renown he has been asked to collaborate with many acclaimed artists, including The Grateful Dead, U2, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, and Jack White. He worked with rock & roll legends Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison as one fifth of the Traveling Wilburys, as well as country/western legends Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris.
Of his more than 30 studio albums, several are considered by rock critics to be among the all-time best, including Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), and Blood on the Tracks (1975). With these albums Dylan united folk and rock seamlessly – something thought impossible until Dylan did it – reminding rock & roll that it had folk roots and introducing the electric guitar to both country and folk music.
In 2007 director Todd Haynes made an interpretative film of Dylan’s life, I’m Not There, using six different actors (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett) to depict different aspects of Dylan’s life and persona. Meanwhile, Dylan continued on his Never Ending Tour, with dates in Australia, New Zealand and Europe in the summer, and the USA in the autumn.
25 May 2011, 00:01 am
@Robzim(Robzim)-459:
I took out the 2 CD movie made by Martin Scorsese a Dylan biography ‘ No Direction Home’ just the other night on Sunday
That kid was 20 – 21 years old when he was writing stuff of legendary social conscience status and putting it into verse and music and he was hardly conscious about what he was actually doing and the ripples across contemporary society he was creating or evoking.
25 May 2011, 05:05 am
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-461:
The man is a legend
Grew up to his music along with the other Bob, the late great Mr Marley and JJ Cale.
Keep on rockn………..
25 May 2011, 06:58 am
Clearly no-one else is interested…*yawn*
25 May 2011, 21:45 pm
a little insight into the makings of a genius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6r0G2B0TY&feature=related
25 May 2011, 23:00 pm
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-464: minute 1:02 ; 30 on this documentary says it all
A leader of all leaders
Stones, Beatles, Who chasing after the true leader of the generation
Bobby D was the pied piper… all the others were the followers
25 May 2011, 23:46 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRgwjUmPnqY&feature=relmfu
Genius No. 2
Shakespeare / Mozart and Beethoven of the 20th century
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