SOUTH Africa have been forced to change their lineout calls before Saturday’s Rugby World Cup match in Newcastle - because two members of the Scotland squad used to train with them and know their old playbook. The Springboks will still use Afrikaans for the calls, all of which will now be new.
WP Nel and Johan Strauss, both of whom qualify to play for Scotland on residency grounds, were once members of the wider South African squad before moving to the UK. Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer, believing they might remember everything they learned back then, decided he had no option but to go for new calls in an area of the game where his team are particularly strong.
“We had Josh and WP in our training camp three and a half, four years back,” Meyer said after announcing his team for the Pool B match at St James’ Park. “We’ve had to change our calling system just to make sure they don’t remember something. It’s a totally new calling system and totally new lineouts.”
Meyer has chosen scrum-half Fourie du Preez to captain the team in succession to Jean de Villiers, who was ruled out of the tournament and subsequently announced his retiral from international rugby after breaking his jaw in last week’s 46-6 win over Samoa. There are three changes to the starting line-up, with Jesse Kriel replacing De Villiers at outside centre, Bismarck du Plessis replacing Adriaan Strauss at hooker, and Lood de Jager taking over from the injured Victor Matfield at lock.
Jan Serfontein, who came into the 31-man squad in place of De Villiers, is among the backs replacements. Willem Alberts is also on the bench, but his ability to play for longer than around half an hour is still in doubt because of a calf strain that forced him to pull out of the Japan game at the last minute.
Scotland name their team today, and look set to be without playmaker Finn Russell. The stand-off turned an ankle against the United States and has been unable to train properly since. The Scotland camp has also yet to announce whether John Hardie has been passed fit to play after being ruled out of the US game because he failed a head-injury test.
South Africa (v Scotland on Saturday at St James’ Park): W Le Roux; JP Pietersen, J Kriel, D de Allende, B Habana; H Pollard, F du Preez; T Mtawarira, B du Plessis, J du Plessis, E Etzebeth, L de Jager, F Louw, S Burger, D Vermeulen. Substitutes: A Strauss, T Nyakane, F Malherbe, P-S du Toit, W Alberts, R Pienaar, P Lambie, J Serfontein.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel