Bekker, Habana in doubt for Boks
21 Aug 2012
Bryan Habana and Andries Bekker sustained ankle injuries that threatens to keep them out of the Test against Argentina in Mendoza on Saturday.
The duo rolled their ankles at Newlands on Saturday. Neither trained on Monday and they will be assessed later in the week to determine their availability. Bekker’s condition in particular will be of grave concern. He excelled at lineout time and his general play was very good. Heyneke Meyer had hoped to extract the best from the injury-plagued lock in the Rugby Championship, with a view to adequately filling the void left by Victor Matfield.
The Springboks’ injury toll has mounted progressively, with a clutch of senior players unavailable to Meyer. He, however, refused to lament their loss too much. ‘It’s difficult to lose guys like Pierre Spies and JP Pietersen before a big tournament like this. Between them they have almost 100 Test caps. It will be a big blow if Bryan and Andries cant play,’ he said.
‘But I think we have enough cover if we need it. There’s some great players coming forward and if they get the opportunity they must take it. The only way they’ll gain experience is by playing. The nice thing is that we’re building a big base of cover if the [incumbents] go down.’
There were no other injury concerns, but there was news on Bismarck du Plessis’ condition. The hooker seriously injured his knee early in Saturday’s Test and will undergo surgery in Cape Town on Tuesday. He is expected to be sidelined for eight months, ruling him out of all rugby for the remainder of 2012.
Adriaan Strauss will start in Du Plessis’ absence and Meyer professed his faith in the Cheetahs man.
‘Adriaan’s had a great Super Rugby tournament. He’s proved himself this year as one of the top hookers in the world. He has not played for a few weeks because the Cheetahs did not reach the playoffs, but I think he was awesome on Saturday,’ said Meyer.
180 Comments
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 » Show All
21 Aug 2012, 11:06 am
94….and do you think it was the kiwis measured approach that stole them the game last time at soccer city or deperation. I would say that whenever the boks have had a decent coach bok vs kiwi games are almost always about desperation
21 Aug 2012, 11:06 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-82: Just for you
Hansen not into refereeing debate
As referee Alain Rolland’s performance in the first Bledisloe Cup Test came under scrutiny, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen wasn’t prepared to rise to the bait in Auckland on Monday.
The stop-start nature of the Test in Sydney has resulted in talk about the game being robbed of its usual intensity, but Hansen said that was just the way it was.
“Referees are what they are and we have always got question marks about how they will interpret things and you’ve just got to adapt and adjust to those.
“The referee might have made a couple of mistakes himself but we certainly contributed to him blowing the whistle. We got off-side, it’s not his fault we were off-side,” Hansen said.
He pointed to his concerns with the All Blacks’ inability to profit from their lineout ball.
“I think we won 14 and played off about six of them,” he said. “So you’ve just halved your possession platforms you can play off and mainly through our own fault.”
“Our delivery to the halfback was pretty shoddy and we need to get some relationship meetings going there and get it sorted out.”
Hansen said the fact the team hadn’t played as well as it wanted was a good thing ahead of Saturday’s Test because it allowed the side to dig deeper for improvements.
“One of the challenges we’ve set ourselves this year is not just looking at the opponent and dealing with that side of it, it is also about dealing with the competition you have with yourself to see if you can be better than the last time you played. In sport that is a major thing to be able to do,” he said.
It wouldn’t surprise Hansen if prickly first five-eighths Quade Cooper was brought into the Australian side.
“He’s a pretty talented player and he’s got some amazing abilities and skills and he causes a lot of damage but his greatest strength is his greatest weakness like all of us and if you overplay it you become a bit predictable,” he said.
“He’s had a pretty good shake-up. He’s spoken a lot about how much it’s hurt not to be there so I’m sure if he gets selected he’ll come out firing.”
A decision on whether prop Tony Woodcock, who left the field in Sydney with injured ribs, would play would be made after training on Tuesday, Hansen said.
21 Aug 2012, 11:07 am
@John Galt-89:
i am sorry
i lost my cool
i will take a break
21 Aug 2012, 11:08 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-103: Niks soos n goeie ‘FOK JOU’ om die klep te laat gaan nie…..hehehe
21 Aug 2012, 11:11 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-92: next thinh pooper is here going off on your comments about cheating and this whole thread goes to pot…we know you think the abs cheat etc, you don’t have to remind us EVERYDAY!
21 Aug 2012, 11:13 am
@Transformation-102:
hehe
an admission by an ab coach? how shocking. i dont think he is as intelligent as gh or ws to say such things.
nothing to do with integrity.
but i’m done on the subject for a while
goodbye
21 Aug 2012, 11:14 am
I would just like to remind everyone that australia have lost to the irish and scots in the south in the past 12 months as well as the english at home a few months before that.
Hardly sides that blow the world apart with rugby ingenuity.
21 Aug 2012, 11:16 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-91:
Since the start of the tri nations SA won exactly 18/36 = 50 percent of their games against Aus, in SA the winning record is 78% and in Aus it is 22%. Australia has also won 6 out of the last 7 times the two teams meet.
Despite this results some people still do not rate Australia for some or other bizarre reason.
Why do you think that this statistics would now all of a sudden start to change?
The changes of us winning at home and losing in Australia this year is probably about 80%.
21 Aug 2012, 11:19 am
@Transformation-102:
I saw an interview with Wayne Smith where he spoke about the same thing Hansen was alluding to with regards to overplaying your strengths to the point where they become a weakness.I think this obsession with the Boks traditional strengths that HM is advocating could be placed in that basket.
21 Aug 2012, 11:21 am
@Tacitus-78: No, if he manages a win against the Aussies home and away, he will be up to scratch…..
What I am asking, is how so many Bok fans can simply refer to games against Australia as ‘gimmes, when our recent record shows otherwise.
When Heyneke pulls off TWO wins in NZ, he will deserve a ‘title’ of some kind. (Miracle worker won’t be one of them though…)
21 Aug 2012, 11:25 am
@Te Rangatira-109: I honestly don’t know how this is so hard to see for ‘certain’ fans.
Meyer honestly must have thrown something in Pretoria’s drinking water, for him to have so many blinkered and adoring groupies.
Some of them reckon a lightning bolt from the heavens will crack them up the a r s e if they DARE question anything he does or says.
Unreal.
21 Aug 2012, 11:26 am
@Te Rangatira-109: yes, there was a cloumn posted by mpundulu where wayne was talking about the Boks kicking game and how teams now automatically set up to counter-attack as they know the ball is most definitely coming back. meyer seems oblivious to all of that and wants more of the same “EXECUTION over INNOVATION”
21 Aug 2012, 11:28 am
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-104:
hehe
ek bedoel dit rerig nie. dit was n emosionele uitbarsting.
maar ja, somtyds is dit goed om die klep te laat gaan
@Transformation-105:
sure no problem
forget i said anything
21 Aug 2012, 11:30 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-111: Well if playing to your strenghts wins you games and trophies well then why not. HM has done what other coaches could not. You and you girlfriend might want to start looking at what the man has achieved and try for a second to realise that he knows a moer of a lot more than the whole lot of us put together.
He has the cridentials but he is yet to prove it at the top level but until he does or does’nt I suggest you shut the fark up and enjoy the show.
21 Aug 2012, 11:32 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-107: “Hardly sides that blow the world apart with rugby ingenuity” you say. You could be talking about the Boks…..
Stop thinking we have some divine right to beat Australia….They have been better than us for some time already. Is it that hard to accept?
21 Aug 2012, 11:39 am
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-114: I could run the 100m in Usain Bolt like speed about 8 years back…….Whoopee for my achievements.
Robbie Deans was the most successful Super ruby coach ever – whoopeeeeeee doo for his achievements 8 years back.
Heyneke won a Super rugby competition in 2007 – whooopeee do for that.
Fast forward 5 years:
I can’t drive the 100m as fast what I could run it.
Robbie Deans is living dangerously and might soon be commentating on Sky NZ or Fox in Oz.
Heyneke, well, I don’t like what I have seen from him and his ‘vision’ thus far – and I will say it, because I have been sprinkled with majic muti stuff and the insults of Bulls fans will not penetrate me – so there
21 Aug 2012, 11:48 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-116:
Brilliant.
21 Aug 2012, 11:49 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-116: Deans is still a super coach. Just unfortunate he is trying to coach a couple of idiots.
What you think of HM’s vision thusfar is irrelevant seeing nothing has really settled into a pattern yet. We’ll most probably only know that after the RC or even at year end. HM is a marathon runner and not a sprinter. His success at the Bulls will highlight that aspect.
I still believe you will be pleasantly surprised but lets wait and see.
21 Aug 2012, 11:51 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-116: Just by the way…..so you then obviously reckon Roger Federer’s success eight years ago also now goes for a ball of kak……..interesting.
It’s called experience my friend.
21 Aug 2012, 11:55 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-116: Deans must come home … to Mordor we will take him.
21 Aug 2012, 11:56 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-76:
Aug 2012, 10:32 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-68: Aussie teams KAKKER than their current one, have smashed Bok teams FAR BETTER than our current one.
Why do you insist on writing the Aussies off, when the truth is: we are their beeetches, and have been for a while.
Have you conveniently wiped out these traumatic memories? As things stand – the Wobblies OWN us (paid off….)
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-110:
110.The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food said:
21 Aug 2012, 11:21 am
@Tacitus-78: No, if he manages a win against the Aussies home and away, he will be up to scratch…..
What I am asking, is how so many Bok fans can simply refer to games against Australia as ‘gimmes, when our recent record shows otherwise.
When Heyneke pulls off TWO wins in NZ, he will deserve a ‘title’ of some kind. (Miracle worker won’t be one of them though…)
You are contradicting yourself.
If Transie wasn’t so in awe of you he would have shown you up immediately as he normaly does with SL and kie…………
21 Aug 2012, 11:57 am
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-114:
“HM has done what other coaches could not.”
Elaborate a bit more, please!!!
21 Aug 2012, 11:59 am
@Mr Black-121: It is obvious South Africans hate losing to Australia more than any other country – it is Dingo Blindness and failure to accept anything but victory
21 Aug 2012, 12:02 pm
@Mr Black-121: Mr Black old fellow – I think if you read between the lines (taking into account the two bloggers I was initially answering…..and their comments I have read re: P de Villiers) you might, just might, work out what it is I was saying (without contradicting myself….)
Perspective and context. Two little concepts that quite a few round here seem to think are foreign agents….
If the best you can do, is dive in with a “Ha Ha – you’re contradicting yourself”, I’m sad to say that perspective and context do not inhabit your world much either.
21 Aug 2012, 12:04 pm
@nama1-122: Won the Super 14 trophy.
21 Aug 2012, 12:07 pm
@nama1-122: Nama the structure this guy put in place behind the scenes in bulls rugby is unmatched. We are still reaping the rewards.
21 Aug 2012, 12:08 pm
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-119: Experience is way overrated my friend. Just ask Hugh Hefner….80000 sexual partners (ex-perience-in-buckets)and now the only time he get’s to see his super experienced Jedi stick is during nappy changes….
Experience is nothing but memories
Fact.
The Boks of 2010 and 2011 will confirm all of this……
21 Aug 2012, 12:09 pm
Kwagga…..people are not interested in being pleasantly surprised. Massaging egos and being able to say….i told you so i really what they enjoy.
Too quickly people forget the calibre of playingpersonal we had these past 2 season and how rubbish we played despite us having the playing confidencemof 2010 superrugby comp with 2sides in the final. And we lost to themozzies in bloem that season…..that is an instant dissmissal in coachingmterms given thensituation and players availible.
Let me reiterate that we should never ever be losing to anyone at home and in partiular the ozzies who travel historially even worse than us. As already mentioned a 6 from 7 return against the ozzies is a crime and even strauli was banking on his home wins against the ozzies…and that an ozzie side with gregan,larkham, george smith,latham at their height…
21 Aug 2012, 12:10 pm
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-126: Which is why I would have preferred it if he had been appointed as Director of Coaching at SARU, and NOT the hands on Bok coach.
21 Aug 2012, 12:10 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-124:
Pedigree, this Mr Black chap seems to be a characterture of one of my old Hannah Barbera favourites “WYLLIE COYOTE”. and you being that irksome ROAD RUNNER……beep…beep
21 Aug 2012, 12:11 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-127: Nappy changes….hehehehe
Lets give it a wait and see. We’ll revisit this topic again in a couple of months time.
Gotta run
21 Aug 2012, 12:14 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-124:
True, I wasn’t reading between the lines. I was reading the actual lines you typed, and you where preaching different gospels in them.
#justsaying
21 Aug 2012, 12:15 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-128: Very true. Have a good one Brigadier.
Adios
21 Aug 2012, 12:20 pm
@Te Rangatira-130:
I enjoyed that myself. Why the coyote never visited his local KFC is beyond me
21 Aug 2012, 12:22 pm
@Mr Black-132: Different strokes and gospels for different folks….?
#Iknowwhoyouareandwhyyouareflapping# just saying.
21 Aug 2012, 12:32 pm
@Mr Black-134: I think you may have misread Pedigrees posts. In both she asks why we assume we will beat the Aussies do easily? I see no contradictions there
21 Aug 2012, 12:37 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-135:
I apologise for showing you up.
Will try to be more constuctive with my criticism next time.
21 Aug 2012, 12:41 pm
@stormer in a teacup-136:
Then she says beating them twice this year is par for the course and no big deal.
21 Aug 2012, 12:41 pm
@Mr Black-121: what are you on about?
winning against australia is NOT a given (as Brig van Zyl suggested) in as much as beating australia will NOT make meyer a “miracle worker” (as Tac suggested)
where’s the contradiction?
just answer the question and not talk kak?
21 Aug 2012, 12:42 pm
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-125:
Ludeke won 2.
I know…HM actually did it…from behind the scenes.
@KWAGGA ROBERTSE-126:
)
WP/Stormers are starting to reap the rewards from structures put in place by Mallet/Rassie. (A final and another two semi finals in Super rugby the last three years….Yes, I know they have not won it yet.
HM is not so unique in that respect.
On the other hand, your beloved Bulls last played in a final in 2010.
They did not make the semis of Super rugby for two seasons (2011, 2012)
How are you STILL reaping the rewards of HM’s structures?
Rugby has changed quite a bit from the time when he was your coach at the Bulls.
21 Aug 2012, 12:43 pm
@stew-123: You’re right…even a loss to the Poms doesn’t hurt them that much.
21 Aug 2012, 12:51 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-141: Probably true……not sure why? I know on a personal level I have huge respect for Australia as a sporting nation and as a rugby playing country…..but it is probably true, I would rather lose to anyone but the Aussies.
21 Aug 2012, 12:58 pm
@Mr Black-137: You didn’t show me up. What is it you don’t understand about my post to the Brig….and then the 2nd post to Tacitus? Where is the contradiction hmmmmmmmmm?
21 Aug 2012, 13:00 pm
@Skeppie-142: The way I see it South Africans have always had this “We’re better than you” attitude (which they most probably were) prior to the aparheid-induced isolation.
However, the tables have largely been overturned since 1992 and South Africans cannot seem to accept this; whether they’re subconsciously blaming the isolation or not I do not know but I suspect they are.
It’s so sad really; it’s only a game.
21 Aug 2012, 13:00 pm
@Mr Black-138: Nope. I said IF Meyer can take a home and away win from the Aussies this year (BECAUSE we have been their biatches for so long, Meyer will be up to the ‘scratch’ Tacitus alleges he is…)
Do you not understand this?
Winning against the Aussies home and away would be some achievement on current standing…if Meyer can do it, I wouldn’t be so hard on him – that is what Tacitus and I have been throwing around)
Nee man. You can do better than that. Surely?
21 Aug 2012, 13:01 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-144: Aparheid = Apartheid.
21 Aug 2012, 13:02 pm
Wayne Smith won 3 Superrugby Titles with Saders
He was very avg at international level as head coach.
So Meyer’s 1 Superrugby title doesnt make him a messiah
Thats like saying had **** Muir won a Superrugby Title in 2007….He would have been our messiah/miracle worker….
21 Aug 2012, 13:03 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-145: But he still wouldn’t be a miracle worker……that title is for those who manage to beat the Kiwis, regularly…..regularly……regularly….
Lesson over.
21 Aug 2012, 13:05 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-110: @stew-123:@BrumbiesBoy-141:
These guys still see Aus as “just a stopover” for the Boks on their way to NZ.
They still don’t grasp the fact that Aus rugby became a world force in the 80′s during the time that SA was in isolation. Not even the fact that they became the 1st country to win two RWC’s can convince them that Australia’s rugby is good enough to beat the Boks on any given day anywhere in the world.
Now the Brig even takes form in the S15 as proof of his point. So let us look at the log at the end of the S15 then. Super rugby form had no bearing in the 3N in the past and will have none on the RC.
21 Aug 2012, 13:07 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-127: Nou weet ek jy is iemand wat te jonk is om internet toegang te he. Jy praat net stront!
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 » Show All
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.