Volume 19 Number 2725 July 2019

ldquoOne Strauss for three du Preez Seems like a fair traderdquo ndash the editor of this publication

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Wallaby Misery Continues at Ellis Park

Going into Saturdays opening Rugby Championship match the Springboks had faced Australia at Ellis Park ten times in history losing just once by two points way back in 1963 ndash 56 years ago And this Wallaby team was not good enough to prevent that record being extended for at least another year

But this is not a blow-by-blow match report We use this space to link you to that sort of thing and to try to provide some context to the stories we choose to link Speaking of which the match on Saturday was a dream Springbok deacutebut for flyhalf Elton Jantjiesrsquo younger brother Herschel

Jantjies the Younger scored the first try after running a brilliant supporting line for Sbu Nkosi and got a second with a sniping run of his own down the blind side before being substituted in the 66th minute

Therersquos a lovely video tribute to Herschel on Twitter put there by SARugbymagcom He was most deservedly selected Man of the Match for his efforts

Another fascinating ndash and indeed wonderful part of Saturdayrsquos test match at fortress Ellis Park was the Gwijo Squad

You can find this vibrant thoroughly enjoyable part of test-match rugby in South Africa at the matches on Twitter and on Facebook In our view itrsquos a wonderful and stunningly unique addition to our rich Springbok tradition and heritage

But we digress Getting back to actual rugby one of our favourite commentators on the game is the one and only Oom Rugby On Tuesday he shared a link to a fascinating analysis by Murray Kinsella on what Oom called ldquoSpringbok bounce back playsrdquo

He opined that Kinsellarsquos analysis illustrates perfectly the high value of crossing the gainline as well as why a big carry through the flyhalf channel can be so devastating in modern rugby

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Currie Cup Results Give Log Interesting LookJaguares in Pole Position to Step Up Next YearAge-Group Rugby Champs a Work in Progress

Josh Strauss to Return to South AfricaProvincialism in SA Rugby is Far From DeadHansen Brings Out the All Blacks A Team

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Currie Cup Results Give Log Interesting Look

The Currie Cup Premier Division fixtures this weekend began on Friday afternoon when the Pumas visited Kimberley to take on the home town Griquas It was always going to be a tough fixture for the two teams that disputed the SuperSport Rugby Challenge final

And so it turned out Although the home team took the lead relatively early and never fell behind every time they scored the visitors came back at them ndash to the extent that the Pumas levelled the match at 29-all with less than ten minutes to go In the end the final score of 37-29 will be a warning to all other teams in the competition

The Friday night encounter at Lotus was a different story The visiting Free State Cheetahs scored first and never looked back They led Blue Bulls by ten points at half-time (12-22) and just kept stretching out the lead in the second half

Indeed if it wasnrsquot for two unconverted tries in the last few minutes the scoreline would have been decidedly unflattering for the home side They also conceded a bonus point to the visitors The final score was 27-43

As an aside the Currie Cup may turn out to be a useful warm-up exercise for the PRO14 The Southern Kings will no doubt be doing the same in the First Division but probably with less intensity

The final match of the weekend was on Saturday in Durban where our editorrsquos least favoured team hosted Western Province Unfortunately him and for fans in the Western Cape the home side burgled a first win (32-27)

Jaguares in Pole Position to Step Up Next Year

At the halfway mark in the Currie Cup First Division its looking more and more likely that the Jaguares are going to reign supreme So far this season they have beaten Griffons (43-50) at home welcomed Boland Cavaliers to their tournament base in Potchefstroom and thrashed them (54-17) and last week travelled to East London to absolutely hammer Border Bulldogs (12-78)

They play EP Elephants this week SWD Eagles next weekend Valke on the following weekend Leopards in week seven On current form we seriously cannot see them losing any of those matches Nor do we expect any team to challenge them in the semifinals or final but stranger things have happened

The interesting bit will be to see who they play in the promotionrelegation match at the end of the season At the moment Blue Bulls lie at the bottom of the Premier Division log with Pumas marginally above them But with four rounds to go therersquos still a lot of rugby to be played

Getting back to this weekendrsquos action we once again couldnrsquot find any First Division match reports But the results are on the SARugby website and show that Boland was pipped by EP Elephants (38-39) at home Valke bagged an away win in a low-scoring match against Leopards (7-12) and Griffons had to settle for a draw against SWD Eagles (36-all)

This weekendrsquos fixtures ndash apart from the EP Elephants vs Jaguares (Saturday) encounter already mentioned ndash will see SWD Eagles entertain Boland Cavaliers (Friday 1900) Valke host Griffons (Saturday) and Leopards welcome Border Bulldogs (Saturday) All the Saturday games appear to kick off at 1500 but again none seem scheduled for television broadcast

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Age-Group Rugby Champs a Work in Progress

SA Rugbyrsquos U20 Championships continued this past weekend with Griquas going down narrowly to Griffons (36-38) in Kimberley Limpopo Blue Bulls thrashed Valke (61-29) and Boland Cavaliers did a similar demolition job on SWD Eagles (71-11)

Looking at the log and while itrsquos too early to identify any clear trends EP Elephants Griffons Leopards and Pumas have all played one won one This weekend should help sort the wheat from the chaff when Griffons host Leopards and both EP Elephants and Pumas play away against SWD Eagles and Valke respectively

Meanwhile the U21 Championships is at the halfway stage with Blue Bulls seven points clear on top of the log Below that is a tussle for the other semifinal spots Last weekend Golden Lions lost at home to Western Province (10-20) while Free State Cheetahs triumphed away from home in Durban (40-44) and Blue Bulls travelled to Potchefstroom to put the Leopards to the sword (6-38)

The fixtures this week are all return matches Leopards will be in Durban Golden Lions travel to Bloemfontein and Blue Bulls make the arduous trip to Cape Town All three of the away teams won the fist match between the sides when playing at home so it could be interesting

Unfortunately none of the above is being televised as far as we can see so you will have to go down to a rugby field near you if you want to catch any of the action Full details of the U20 Championships and the U21 Championships can be found on the web

Josh Strauss to Return to South Africa

We first became aware of the news when Jamie Lyall reported it on Twitter ldquoJosh Strauss is set to return to South Africa agreeing a deal to join the Bulls Sale Sharks are allowing him to move on despite having a year left on his contract Had drawn interest from France and I believe Glasgow too made some enquiries about bringing him back to Scotstounrdquo

We subsequently looked into it and found several news stories with a little more detail but to be frank not as much as we had hoped All appear to have been instigated by an announcement by his club

And the news is pretty much contained in Lyallrsquos Tweet above But Straussrsquo comment in the announcement may hint at what might be behind it ldquoFor family reasons a move back to South Africa makes sense and I was delighted to get an offer from the Bulls ahead of the 2020 Super Rugby Season I wish Dimes and the club all the best for the futurerdquo

Another factor that may have come into play is a move to Manchester by the du Preez twins Jean-Luc and Daniel along with elder brother Rob That was initially to be on a temporary loan basis but then daddy dearest was fired from his coaching job in Durban Ok Fired is our word The official announcement went something along the lines of the franchise ldquohad amicably parted ways with [its] head coachrdquo

But getting back to the man of the moment Josh Strauss the news of his imminent arrival prompted our utterly unopionionated editor to quip ldquoOne Strauss for three du Preez Seems like a fair traderdquo

Page 5

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Provincialism in SA Rugby is Far From Dead

It is probably to be expected that South African rugby fans ndash particularly those of a certain age ndash are still steeped in the almost rabid provincialism with which they grew up This was highlighted on Sunday morning when a friend of our editor called to chat about the Springbok match last weekend

One of the first remarks he made was that he thought Elton Jantjies had kicked too much early on and that he had been reigned by other senior players This didnrsquot square with our editorrsquos memory so we watched the replay at 11am on Sunday which proved the perception entirely wrong

We counted 35 kicks by the Springboks in the match on Saturday of which 23 were by the flyhalf (four kick-offs five conversions and eight penalties) In the entire match he kicked out of hand only six times but the team as a whole did so 22 times Obviously 16 of those kicks were by other players but it is an interesting lesson in how difficult a perception is to shake

For context the friend is a Western Province and Stormers supporter and his negative attitude probably goes back to the year that Jantjies played in Cape Town Back then he was instructed by a certain idiot coach to kick for territory as often as possible It wasnrsquot a good game plan then and it isnrsquot now

To verify our findings we consulted our Rugby Stats app (available on Android and Apple) It reported 22 kicks in total but put nine at the door of Jantjies the Elder so we have to wonder if the statistician who made the count isnrsquot also a Western Province supporter Either that or we counted wrong

Hansen Brings Out the All Blacks A Team

Therersquos an interesting piece on Rugby365 this weekasserting that All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has selected his best possible team for the fixture against the Springboks in Wellington on Saturday Why this would be surprising is a mystery to us but nevertheless

The article opines that selection of both Richie Morsquounga (flyhalf) and Beauden Barrett (fullback) suggests this is the best possible New Zealand line-up And while a glance at the rest of the team sheet would tend to confirm that we have to ask again why should this be a surprise

Think about the context

It is All Blacks versus Springboks one of the fiercest rivalries in world rugbyThe two teams are the top two in historical win percentage in test matches (both over 65)Springboks won the previous encounterbetween the teams at this venue (last year)It is a dress rehearsal for both teamrsquos opening game of the Rugby World Cup in Japan

Why would either team go into Wellington undercooked For the record the All Black match fifteen are 15 Beauden Barrett 14 Ben Smith 13 Jack Goodhue 12 Sonny Bill Williams 11 Rieko Ioane 10 Richie Morsquounga 9 Thomas Perenara 8 Kieran Read (captain) 7 Matt Todd 6 Shannon Frizell 5 Sam Whitelock 4 Brodie Retallick 3 Owen Franks 2 Codie Taylor 1 Joe Moody

Replacements 16 Dane Coles 17 Ofa Tursquoungafasi 18 Angus Tarsquoavao 19 Vaea Fifita 20 Dalton Papalii 21 Aaron Smith 22 Anton Lienert-Brown 23 George Bridge

Anticipating Battle of the Caketin on Saturday

The last time the Springboks played the All Blacks at the stadium known locally as the caketin in Wellington the visitors surprised New Zealand (34-36) If our memory serves us correctly that was the very first time South Africa beat New Zealand at that venue

As we suggested last week coach Rassie Erasmus has rung the changes for the New Zealand match Only three of the starting players last week made the team for the All Black test Eben Etzebeth Pieter-Steph du Toit and Makazole Mapimpi

The latter two would probably have been on the bench had Siya Kolisi and Aphiwe Dyantyi not been injured Although regular Bok captain Kolisis has recovered from his injury Erasmus opted not to risk him getting injured again so close to the World Cup

All of this meant that the Springboks were in need of a captain One option would have been last weekrsquos captain Etzebeth du Toit was another option

But the coaching staff opted to rather give the honour to Duane Vermeulen The full squad for the match is

15 Willie le Roux 14 Cheslin Kolbe 13 Lukhanyo Am 12 Damian de Allende 11 Makazole Mapimpi 10 Handreacute Pollard 9 Faf de Klerk 8 Duane Vermeulen (captain) 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit 6 Kwagga Smith 5 Franco Mostert 4 Eben Etzebeth 3 Frans Malherbe 2 Malcolm Marx 1 Steven Kitshoff

The replacements for Saturday are

16 Bongi Mbonambi 17 Tendai Mtawarira 18 Trevor Nyakane 19 RG Snyman 20 Francois Louw 21 Herschel Jantjies 22 Frans Steyn 23 Jesse Kriel

If it werenrsquot for the presence of Malherbe and de Allende one might be tempted to call it a pretty strong team However the former will struggle in the scrums against Joe Moody and the latter will as usual be far too predictable

On the plus side their replacements on the bench are more than capable of doing the job properly once they come on One hopes the hole isnt too deep at that point

But on a more intriguing note perhaps the most surprising selection was that of Kwagga Smith at flank Itrsquos not that we doubt his quality Not at all No we just wonder what happened to swing things in his favour Therersquos a piece running on SARugbymagcom this week that may provide some of those answers

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For your weekend viewing pleasure

Without a doubt the big one this weekend is between the number one and number two (in historic win percentages) of world rugby All Blacks vs Springboks That kicks off at 0935 Saturday morning and will be followed a couple of hours later by the other Rugby Championships match-up Australia versus Argentina

For the early risers our Ultimate Rugby app also tells us that there are three encounters in the Pacific Nations Cup taking place in the wee hours of Saturday and Sunday And the Currie Cup Premier Division (alongside) also continues (ramifications on page two) but thatrsquos it for the televised rugby this weekend

As far as the non-televised rugby is concerned on page two yoursquoll find details and analysis of the Currie Cup First Division fixtures on Friday and Saturday And then one half of page four touches on the results and fixtures in the local U20 and U21 championships Finally there is also the Womenrsquos IPL this weekend

Thanks for reading our newsletter We need feedback to improve it ndash and only you can give us that feedback Please take the time to send us an email We want to hear from you ndash good bad or ugly a pat on the back or a kick in the butt Remember to look us up on Twitter where youll find many of our contributors on our timeline

The Rugby Team at Leopard Newsletters

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