Jean: Pumas Tests are crucial
9 Aug 2012
Jean de Villiers says the first two Tests against Argentina will be the Springboks’ most important with regards to building some early momentum in the Rugby Championship.
The Boks will play Argentina in Cape Town on 18 August before facing the Pumas in Mendoza on 25 August. They’re the easiest fixtures when one considers that the Boks have never lost to Argentina, and that the other two teams in the tournament, Australia and New Zealand, have enjoyed a good record against South Africa in recent times.
But on Wednesday, the Bok captain said that Argentina won’t be easy-beats, and that the first two matches of the campaign are vitally important for reasons beyond results.
‘It [complacency] is a trap we won’t fall into,’ said De Villiers. ‘These two games are the most important in the tournament. Argentina will be psyched up given it’s their first appearance, they will be throwing everything they have at us.
‘For us, it’s important to build on what we achieved in that England series. We were disappointed with the way we ended the series [with a draw in Port Elizabeth]. We have to look at the positives of that series and bring it all together in one 80-minute performance.
‘We see it as a big positive to play against Argentina, and we’re not looking past that.’
The majority of the squad got together on Sunday, while the Sharks’ Boks, who competed in the Super Rugby final in Hamilton, have now joined the team in Cape Town.
The Boks will enjoy two weeks of preparation ahead of that first Test against Argentina, a marked difference to the build up to the England series where they were only afforded a few days together before the first Test.
‘There’s a different mindset knowing you don’t have another tournament to go back to,’ said De Villiers. ‘We played against England knowing we would have to go back to the Super 15. But now all of our focus is on this tournament [the Rugby Championship]. It must also be a positive that we have a whole extra week to prepare compared to that England series.’
The Bok captain defended the game plan, and believes it could bring them success in the coming months. He did concede that the team would need to be more accurate in their implementation of this playing pattern.
‘We didn’t have much time for preparation ahead of that England series, so we stuck to a simple game plan. In saying that, we scored two great tries on the counterattack in the second half of that first Test, and we’ve not seen that side of Bok rugby for awhile.
‘The rugby we played in first half of the second Test was outstanding. There are areas that we can improve but there are also good signs. Hopefully we can evolve, but the more rugby changes the more it stays the same. It’s about getting into the right areas and taking your opportunities.’
De Villiers also defended flyhalf Morné Steyn, who along with the Bok game plan came in for some strong criticism after the third Test against England.
The skipper feels that Steyn is the right man for the Boks and that the only area in Steyn’s game that is below par is his goal-kicking.
‘I tend to disagree with that perception [that Steyn is in a bad space mentally]. His general play in that England series was very good, it was only his kicking at goal that let him down a bit.
‘We’re so used to him kicking at 90 percent, so when he doesn’t there is some concern. But his decision making on attack has been good, and he’s varied his play well.
‘He’s in a good place mentally, and hopefully he can sort out the kicking. We are not too concerned.’
By Jon Cardinelli, in Cape Town
310 Comments
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9 Aug 2012, 16:59 pm
@Gumboots-148: Very hectic out there….lol.
9 Aug 2012, 17:00 pm
@Puma-149:
I think the top two of each heat goes through and then the rest fight it out in two runs for the other spots… Not sure though
9 Aug 2012, 17:06 pm
Sifiso not looking good. Now he has to fight it out for the final two spots…
9 Aug 2012, 17:08 pm
Sifisio came 6th again in his 3rd run. Think that is him out now. Pity. He was definitely better in the last Olympics. Don’t know much about this sport, but think you do have to get a good lane to start to have a good chance here.
9 Aug 2012, 17:10 pm
@Gumboots-152: Not sure either. Then he just may have another chance. I watched him in the last Olympics and he was one of the top riders there. Unfortunately he and another rider crashed. Not sure if it was in the semi or final that time. Someone here will know.
Since then read he has had a shoulder op and that knee replacement.
9 Aug 2012, 17:16 pm
@Puma-155: Boet once you have had a knee replacement you will never have the same speed or strength
I am surprised he is still even there, tough kid
9 Aug 2012, 17:21 pm
Cheers guys…
Good luck to all participants…
9 Aug 2012, 17:21 pm
@sharks_lover-156: Very tough kid. Jeez he is only 25! I was told the a knee replacement knee only lasts 15 years or 18 the very most. That is if you look after it. The reason I am still waiting. Feel I am too young for it right now……. Bwaahahaha. Now read Sifiso at 25 has already had one full knee replacment done. Tough young chap for sure.
9 Aug 2012, 17:22 pm
@Gumboots-157: Cheers bud.
9 Aug 2012, 17:24 pm
@Puma-158:
9 Aug 2012, 17:28 pm
@sharks_lover-160:
As they say you as youngs as you feel………hahaha.
9 Aug 2012, 17:28 pm
Jeez my english is gone to the dogs……..hahaha.
9 Aug 2012, 17:29 pm
@Puma-162:
ur only as old as the lady you feel 
, so im a young fella hehehe
9 Aug 2012, 17:30 pm
@sharks_lover-160: Really looking forward to see how our CC side go on Saturday. Not a bad side at all if you think how many we have lost to the Boks.
9 Aug 2012, 17:32 pm
@sharks_lover-163:
9 Aug 2012, 17:36 pm
@Puma-164: Yeah me too, but still 18 players away from the team of a week ago, thats huge, but hey its a cnace for the fringe players to show their metal and take the chance that has come their way.
9 Aug 2012, 17:38 pm
cnace = chance
9 Aug 2012, 17:53 pm
@sharks_lover-166: Yes will be a different team for sure. Just good to see some getting to start in the CC.
9 Aug 2012, 17:56 pm
Rugby and cricket are way overrated and over played in contrast to what represents ultimate sporting endeavor and achievement in certain rather insulatory induced societies.
Cricket should rate about as interesting or appealing as baseball or croquet as a spectacle, all other bat/racquet ball sports like tennis, badminton, table tennis far exceed cricket in levels of mastery and player technique and discipline.
Rugby has a far greater spectator appeal and athletic attractiveness yet it is fraught with way too many rules and stupid ifs & buts regulations and refereeing idiosyncratic influences to ever be regarded as pure expression of athletic ability.
Rugby could never be classed as pure unadulterated sporting endeavor on the scale that track and field or most other direct participation sports bring out the pure individual excellence that the olympic ratified sports can or do.
So rugby could be accepted as a big brawl of bravado showing off certain ball handling, kicking, athletic enterprising, and physical domination attributes, which gives it the overall spectator interest it generates, but in comparison to olympic or international track and field competition, it pales into insignificance in comparison.
7′s rugby perhaps could step up to showcase some of those attributes which determine the skills and disciplines that rugby portray as aesthetically attractive combinations of ball skill and athletic ability, but 15 man rugby will always simply be barbarism in action under the guise of ‘sport’ much like MMA or cage fighting does.
Skittle sticks on the other hand is just a stupid colonialist throwback to the Victorian era where men try engage in a game devised to keep the gentry occupied on balmy days of boredom in the far flung colonies. No wonder it could never become ratified as an olympics discipline, same as 15 man rugby union could not.
9 Aug 2012, 18:01 pm
@sharks_lover-166: Is Kanko coming back to the Sharks after his six months in Japan? Read Rugby 365 and see what you think. Seems as if Sharks have released him from his contract.
9 Aug 2012, 18:02 pm
If Sharks loss Kanko that would be a huge loss for us in next years S15.
9 Aug 2012, 18:02 pm
@Puma-171: loss = lose
Okay out of here now.
9 Aug 2012, 18:37 pm
@Puma-171: Puma trust me he will be back with the Sharks, when the Sharks players greeted him it was with the see you back for the Super 15, Also he answered it with that fact, He asked for a release of contract for 6 months
9 Aug 2012, 18:42 pm
Yo Pops this one is for you!
“[Warning: this post contains a lot of bad language and shouting. My parents should stop reading now.]
Dear Government (big, small, national and local),
Here’s an idea. Take your pathetic, meaningless, mind-blowingly expensive and stomach-churningly patronising Women’s Day and cancel it. Cancel the entire idea of “women’s month”. Tell me, what is the ******* point?
Trash that ridiculous, pointless, bloated Dept of Women, Children and People with Disabilities (how’s that for neatly categorising us little ladies – not only does possession of a ****** constitute a disability, but ******-owners are as powerless and lacking in agency as children). It’s no more than a particularly sanctimonious event-planning agency. The departmental mission? “Ooh, women and children are getting raped and abused, they bear the brunt of criminally lousy education and brutal poverty: LET THEM EAT CUPCAKES! Plus we’ll throw in some glossy leaflets, and send someone in a designer suit to pat heads and make a speech full of platitudes before we jet off for another shopping trip er international conference.”
So ditch the pointless sodding public holiday (estimated cost to the economy: SEVEN BILLION). Stop bleating about the month of women. It’s PATHETIC, considering it’s open season on South African women 24/7, year in, year out. Our rape stats are a global disgrace (Goddess, how many times do I have to ******* say this, the WORST in the world for a country not at war – the scale is unimaginable, the suffering ditto), black lesbians have “carve me up and smash my brains in” signs stamped on their backs, rural women and children live in relentless, grinding misery and poverty HUGELY exacerbated by patriarchal strictures, which are of course absolutely sacred (and the fact that the Traditional Courts Bill, which would render these women even more helpless and wretched, is actually allowed to pollute national airtime is a bloody disgrace). We are failing, no, betraying, no, ABUSING children by callously pissing away their only shot at an education, their ONLY chance of a life of decent employment, a form of abuse that will affect girls worse than boys; we’re losing ground in terms of infant and maternal mortality; women without cash are being denied C-sections at state hospitals and giving birth to stillborn babies on the floor as a result. SO DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT ******* WOMEN’S DAY YOU BOZOS.
Here’s a better idea. Instead of the jamborees and a long weekend of more boozing and beatings and rapes, take the money – the obscene piles and piles of it you intend to waste – and use it to fund Rape Crisis, which is having to CLOSE ITS ******* DOORS because you don’t think it’s worth supporting, never mind that it does priceless work, not just in enabling women and their families to pick up their lives after they’ve been blown apart, but in taking an enormous burden off both the public health and criminal justice systems. Fund the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, which is literally having bake sales to keep running. All those NGOs that have lost their overseas funding because of the economic crisis – how about funding them, the hundreds that work with the poorest of the poor (which, SURPRISE! equates women and children), which do invaluable work for women with TB or Aids, which support women who are raising grandchildren, running crèches, soup kitchens, micro-employment schemes, food gardens, hospices and all the heroic things that South African women do to keep this country running, NO ******* THANKS TO YOU.
Stop whining about the Lotto (an additional tax on the poor) and big business, and how “they need to come to the party”. International funders have been warning for South African NGOs for years, you’re not a baby democracy any more, YOUR government needs to start picking up the tab for this. And so you bloody well ought. What’s next, asking the Lotto or big business to supply the state with ambulances?
So grow the **** up. Cancel the froth and bubbles. What you have reduced the 1956 Women’s March to is a travesty. That was an occasion of extraordinary dignity and power, and we’d like to remember and honour it without having to use sickbags, please. Lilian Ngoyi and Albertina Sisulu and the thousands of brave women who took part that day are squirming in their graves at your appalling, ongoing, almost CASUAL abandonment of this country’s women, especially the poorest ones. The public spectacle of hypocrisy that is Women’s Day is just rubbing salt into their wounds.
*Never post in a rage. But sometimes rage is appropriate.”
9 Aug 2012, 18:58 pm
@fitz1ella-169: So rugby is kak but sevens is ok because the IOC says so – got it
9 Aug 2012, 19:00 pm
@kaksioek-175:
Rugby is kak till the WP manages to win another game then he will be shouting their praisers
9 Aug 2012, 19:07 pm
@fitz1ella-169:
while i may not agree with you, i will say the following part of your statement:
“Rugby has a far greater spectator appeal and athletic attractiveness yet it is fraught with way too many rules and stupid ifs & buts regulations and refereeing idiosyncratic influences to ever be regarded as pure expression of athletic ability.”
would be closer to correct if you included in it the filthy, outright and blatant cheating, illegal, dishonest and dangerous play which also occures (mostly a result of kiwi participation in the sport).
9 Aug 2012, 19:10 pm
Where is Pops now. I copied and pasted just for him!
9 Aug 2012, 19:24 pm
@fitz1ella-169: Still bitter ?
9 Aug 2012, 19:35 pm
Time to clear the room
9 Aug 2012, 19:45 pm
The greatest 800m runner ever? Meet David Rudisha
By Tom Rostance
BBC Sport at the Olympic Park
For the 80,000 fans lucky enough to have tickets for Thursday evening’s athletics session at the Olympic Stadium, there is one stand-out name they are all there to see.
Usain Bolt is a global star who could grab his second gold medal in four days in the 200m final later on – but he is not the only world-beater on display.
David Rudisha
Born: 17 December 1988
Medals: 800m world champion 2011; African 800m champion 2008, 2010; 800m world junior champion 2006
800m PB: 1:41.01 (World Record)
400m PB: 45.50 seconds
At 20:00 BST, David Rudisha will aim to show the world that he is the greatest 800m runner of all time.
The 23-year-old Kenyan may have entered these Games under the radar of many, but there is a good reason why BBC athletics commentator and Olympic medallist Brendan Foster has described him as the star attraction of London 2012.
Speaking before Tuesday’s semi-final – which Rudisha won at a canter ahead of British athlete Andrew Osagie – Foster said: “We are talking about a magnificent athlete. This man could be the star of these Olympic Games.
“We’ve got Usain Bolt winning lots of medals but this man could break the world record if he puts his mind to it.”
Rudisha did that twice within the space of a single week in 2010, lowering the best time over two laps to one minute 41.01 at the age of just 21, and he has recorded six of the 10 fastest 800m ever run, as well as winning gold at last year’s World Championships in South Korea.
Analysis
Seb Coe
Chairman, London 2012
“David Rudisha is the outstanding 800m runner of his generation. And I will say it, probably on paper the most impressive track and field athlete at these Games – I would say that, wouldn’t I?”
It is, historically, not an easy record to break. The time of 1:41.73 set by London Games chief Sebastian Coe in 1981 stood for more than 16 years before it was matched, and then improved, by Kenyan-born Dane Wilson Kipketer. He and Rudisha remain the only men ever to better Coe’s figures, and no-one except the Kenyan has broken the 1:43 barrier this year.
Yet remarkably there are even hopes that Rudisha could become the first man to break 1:40 in the final.
Whatever the time, Foster is in no doubt that he will deliver gold.
He said: “He likes to run from the front. He doesn’t like trouble around him and he is outstanding enough to not have to worry about people around him.
“Nobody can touch him. He’s a beautiful athlete to watch.”
Rudisha’s father, Daniel, was also an athlete and took silver in the 4x400m relay in the 1968 Games in Mexico City.
Rudisha told BBC Sport: “My father is a big inspiration to me – he is the reason why I am here, why I am running.
The fastest 800m ever
David Rudisha: 1:41.01
David Rudisha: 1:41.09
Wilson Kipketer: 1:41.11
Wilson Kipketer: 1:41.24
David Rudisha: 1:41.33
“I understand that billions of people are watching. Doing something special at the Olympics would be an honour.
“Kenya know I am going to bring this gold home. They have no doubt. I want to do it for them.”
And while the eyes of the world will be on a rangy Jamaican and his bid for Olympic greatness, they may just witness this unassuming Kenyan join him.
9 Aug 2012, 19:52 pm
@Dawn-180:
uhm, room’s pretty empty…
9 Aug 2012, 19:55 pm
Comparing witnessing Bolt & Blake for the 100 and 200 and Rudisha for the 800 and James for the 400 to say a RWC or a S15 final… pfffftt
No comparison.. not even close… not even remotely close..
I mean who got true appreciation of true sporting excellence compared to a bunch of rugger thugs slugging it out on an uneven playing field?
and that goes for all or any rugby team compared to watching these exhilarating performances of absolute unequaled class.
Out to go check the next spate of drama to unfold on the greatest sporting show on earth.
9 Aug 2012, 20:07 pm
There is no doubt that the Olympics is the greatest sporting show on earth.
The main reason why rugby is not an olympic sport is not because the sport is not good or popular enough but probably because it would be logistically difficult to hold a full fifteen-a-side rugby competition as part of the games over a 2 week period.
We can be flipping glad as well- the players are already overplayed as it is.
9 Aug 2012, 20:15 pm
@Robzim-184: Indeed that alone is the reason. Either there is a rugby tournament with only a few teams involved (if round robin) or straight playoffs, as no way any participant will be able to use full strenght team for more than 3 games during that time.
9 Aug 2012, 20:30 pm
Blooming decathlon is interminable
9 Aug 2012, 20:32 pm
When is Usain on again.
9 Aug 2012, 20:36 pm
I love these games, but how they can have rubbish like dressage and synchronised swimming and air pistol shooting up there on the same stage as the track & field and the swimming is just baffling.
9 Aug 2012, 20:40 pm
Swimming not baffling
You fast you win?
9 Aug 2012, 20:41 pm
Caster looking awesome…!!!
You go girl…!!!
9 Aug 2012, 20:41 pm
easily into the finals…
1:57:something…!!
9 Aug 2012, 20:45 pm
Imperious Caster!!You go …..
9 Aug 2012, 20:46 pm
@sharks_lover-176: I know they say people were walking around looking like suicidal zombies in Cape Town on the Sunday after their team was unceremoniously disposed of like a used tissue by the Sharks in the Super 15 semi-final however I didn’t realize it was that bad. Skop just provides an indicator of how badly they have taken it. I guess its no more rugby for Skoppie ?
9 Aug 2012, 20:46 pm
She looked indestructible. Gold coming up on Saturday.
9 Aug 2012, 20:47 pm
yeah… hardly breathing hard at the end there…
very real chance of a gold…
9 Aug 2012, 20:49 pm
It’s also baffling how the Lions are still competing in super rugby after ten years of utter dros.The Olympics are more than just popular sports.
9 Aug 2012, 20:49 pm
@>^..^< katman-188:
Did you hear the news that the head of the Somali delegation was called aside by the IOC and told in no uncertain terms that shooting and sailing are not part of the same event?
9 Aug 2012, 20:49 pm
@fitz1ella-183: So you would say that Bolt or Phelps are greater sportsmen than some of the greatest rugby players ? Interesting.
9 Aug 2012, 20:50 pm
@IAAS-197:
9 Aug 2012, 20:50 pm
how about the 35 year old italian donato in the triple jump…!!??
very cool to see an old man mixing it up the kids…!!
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