Jean ruled out of WP semi
17 Oct 2012
Jean de Villiers will miss Saturday’s semi-final at Ellis Park because of injury.
De Viilliers sustained a grade one hamstring strain in training and will be replaced by Marcel Brache at inside centre. Deon Fourie will assume the captaincy in De Villiers’ absence. The Springboks captain will be sidelined for three weeks, and isn’t considered in danger of missing the year-end tour.
De Villiers is the third WP Bok to go down with injury in the space of a week. As reported on Monday, Bok forwards Andries Bekker (toe) and Tiaan Liebenberg (back) have been ruled out for the rest of the year with injuries.
De Kock Steenkamp will manage the lineout from the No 5 position, while hooker Scarra Ntubeni gets his big chance in a play-off match.
These changes see lock Wilhelm van der Sluys filling the void on the bench, while prop Deon Carstens is also added to the reserves. The latter selection means that openside flank Fourie, who played the majority of his rugby at hooker until recently, will replace Ntubeni in the event of injury.
In other changes, Gio Aplon replaces Joe Pietersen at fullback, with the latter dropping to the bench. Aplon featured in the match 22 last week, but wasn’t considered for the starting side because he had just returned from an ankle injury. According to WP management, he is now ready to start.
WP – 15 Gio Aplon, 14 Gerhard van den Heever 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Marcel Brache, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Nic Groom, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Don Armand, 6 Deon Fourie (c), 5 De Kock Steenkamp, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Steven Kitshoff.
Subs: 16 Deon Carstens, 17 Brok Harris, 18 Wilhelm van der Sluys, 19 Jebb Sinclair, 20 Louis Schreuder, 21 Damian de Allende, 22 Joe Pietersen.
37 Comments
17 Oct 2012, 13:30 pm
Injury-prone DRAGONS.
This makes Saturday much tougher. De Villiers looked good behind a dominant pack.
17 Oct 2012, 13:33 pm
I got a feeling…
17 Oct 2012, 13:33 pm
Dare i say it?? A blessing in disguise?
This Brache could just be the Spark for the WP backline that they needed
17 Oct 2012, 13:35 pm
You have to wonder why Jean wasn’t subbed early in the 2nd half on Saturday.
The game was pretty much sewn up, we have a brilliant young replacement on the bench in Brache who needs experience, and still Allistair plays Jean till near the end and gives Brache about 6 minutes….sigh..
17 Oct 2012, 13:36 pm
@sharks_lover-3: Never thought of it that way, but you may be right
17 Oct 2012, 13:39 pm
The threat of last place meant AC was forced into playing boks……
WP will get beaten this weekend….I dont sense any urgency …
17 Oct 2012, 13:44 pm
@katman-2:
that satuday’s gonna be a good good night..?…
17 Oct 2012, 13:50 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-7: Inderdaad.
17 Oct 2012, 13:50 pm
with all the quatas wp are looking like a soccer team… no way lions can lose against this team…
17 Oct 2012, 13:54 pm
Good team and against the Lions think that centre pairing is better than having HdV there.
Think Brache is a very good player.
17 Oct 2012, 13:54 pm
@Puma-10: should read = JdV
17 Oct 2012, 13:55 pm
@suffer_guy-9: What is a ‘quata’?
17 Oct 2012, 13:56 pm
@sharks_lover-3: Agree totally.
I like the way this youngster Brache plays. Think he will most definitely be better for the team playing Lions.
17 Oct 2012, 13:57 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-12:
17 Oct 2012, 13:59 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-12:
a qualified nwata
17 Oct 2012, 13:59 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-12: It’s the under-fire Australian airline. Due to financial trouble they’ve decided to drop the N.
17 Oct 2012, 14:03 pm
@katman-16:
17 Oct 2012, 14:04 pm
@Puma-13: You changed your mind yet on going to the game?? Sharksgirl gonna be there too.
17 Oct 2012, 14:06 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-15:
@katman-16:
Suffer_guy is right then, no ways WP will win this games with qualified nwatas on board the struggling quatas flying bird.
17 Oct 2012, 14:07 pm
@sharks_lover-18: Well if it is raining then watching at the club. My last few times at KP I sat in the rain watching. Not for me at my age, like a bit of comfort…
17 Oct 2012, 14:23 pm
looks like JDV may miss EOYT AS WELL
It hasn’t taken long for the fears of Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer to be realised, with the decision to allow teams to contest the last stages of the Absa Currie Cup at full strength now threatening to backfire spectacularly on the national squad.
DHL Western Province coach Allister Coetzee confirmed at a team announcement press conference on Wednesday that Tiaan Liebenberg and Andries Bekker, two WP Boks who were ruled out of this week’s semifinal against the Lions in Johannesburg, will be out for the rest of the season.
That means they will miss the end-of-year Bok tour to Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
And it doesn’t end there either for those who are concerned at what impact too much rugby is having on Meyer’s chances of drawing some relevance from the three-match trip to the northern hemisphere.
Bok skipper Jean de Villiers was forced to leave training at Newlands with a hamstring strain that has been bothering him for the past few weeks and prevented him from taking part in WP practice last week.
Just why De Villiers played against the Cheetahs in the final league match last week was a question many were asking, and it seems their worst fears may be realised, with De Villiers undergoing a scan on the injury at the time of writing.
Coetzee did not want to speculate, and said that his captain had been called off because “I see no point in risking him”, but it is understood he could be doubtful for the November tour.
“Jean is definitely out of this game after he went off with a hamstring strain and we will be able to confirm further once he has undergone his scan,” said Coetzee.
“The situation with Tiaan and Andries is that both of them are out for the rest of the season. Tiaan is out for eight weeks with a vertebrae injury while Andries has a toe injury. Both injuries were picked up in the match against the Cheetahs.”
Coetzee added that both were freak injuries and were not down to the players being over-played, but the fact remains that if they were not on the playing field representing their provinces in a competition that was played for 90% of the league season under-strength and in front of small crowds, neither of the injuries would have happened.
With the Cheetahs’ Coenie Oosthuizen being ruled out after the WP/Cheetahs game, there are effectively three Boks – and maybe four if the worst news about De Villiers is confirmed – who have been ruled out a stage of the season where the players should really be resting
17 Oct 2012, 14:26 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-19:
17 Oct 2012, 14:34 pm
@grant10-21: Like I said on the Bok duo thread, who will be left standing after the cc semi and final? How many more players will there be out injured? We could have even more that may not make eoyt. Season is just way, way too long. Players bodies are breaking down from far too much rugby.
One thing if JdV don’t go eoyt then we will have a very young centre pairing. Not so sure about Taute at outside centre either. His defence was just terrible against ABs. For now think Mayer will still start Taute there and probably then JdJ as Mapoe is also out injured. This could get Jordaan a call up.
17 Oct 2012, 14:44 pm
AC is a doos
last week he couldn’t wait to tell us that as long as the unions still own the players contracts he will play ALL his Boks now 3 players are crocked… eish.
17 Oct 2012, 14:47 pm
@Transformation-24: Ag come on man…
Bekker injured his bloody toe! Tiaan barely ran on the field…
As for JdV, this should have always been his last year of Rugby anyways, he’s beyond average.
You guys are welcome to him
He can replace one of your foreigners.
17 Oct 2012, 14:47 pm
The problem is not the Currie Cup.
The Currie Cup should be full strength from week 1. It’s this joke of a Super 15 format that’s the problem.
SARU sold it’s own people down the river. F***ers!
17 Oct 2012, 14:54 pm
@Bagel-25: When I say Tiaan barely ran on the field I mean for the Boks…
17 Oct 2012, 17:20 pm
Pleasantly surprised. The bst team available was chosen. Nice one Allister!
17 Oct 2012, 17:56 pm
@ 15 hehehe
Lekka een bakkies
17 Oct 2012, 18:13 pm
Francois Venter and Serfontein to get call-ups…
17 Oct 2012, 18:18 pm
@mxhosa-30: JJ, Arno Botha, Jurgen Visser and Morne Mellett too…
17 Oct 2012, 18:23 pm
@willievz-31:
Yeah, and Bakkies, Rossouw and FdP. Is their a trend here?
17 Oct 2012, 18:36 pm
@willievz-31:
Wilhelm Steenkamp for Andries Bekker
17 Oct 2012, 21:09 pm
Coetzee must be the worst when it comes to rushing Boks strait back in.
Fine lets say Lieb & Andries this time were freak accidents, Jean’s hammy has obviously been bothering him for some time and he has looked tired even during end of rug championships. Really could have come of sooner against cheetahs or rested completely.
Plum seems to be doing a much better job at it and hopefully it will pay off for Sharks/Boks.
Too much “pressure” with all the religation business perhaps for old Coetzee
17 Oct 2012, 21:11 pm
Off*
17 Oct 2012, 21:15 pm
Off*
This posting and its never ending “publication failed” rubbish will it ever end.. Needs an uprage or maybe update my phone browser to bypass KeoAlgarythum sensors…
17 Oct 2012, 21:21 pm
@Guns-34:
The problem is once a Bok picks up a niggling injury, they’ll play with it trough the S15, Championship, CC, EOYT nad then straight back into S15 training for the next season
They never get an opportunity to rest and to recover properly
Rugby is a professional sport now, they should have a reasonable break
Look at the NFL, NHL or NBA, they break for a couple of months to recover
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