Bok Team

South African coach Heyneke Meyer wasted no time in drafting back star scrumhalf Fourie du Preez for the crucial Rugby Championship Test against Australia.

Du Preez, ahead of Ruan Pienaar, is one of two key changes for the encounter at Newlands on Saturday.

The other is Adriaan Strauss at hooker ahead of Bismarck du Plessis - who was controversially red-carded, after two yellow cards, the first a ridiculous blunder by referee Romain Poite, against New Zealand a fortnight ago.

Meanwhile veteran prop Jannie du Plessis and flyhalf Morné Steyn will play their 50th Tests.

It is only the second time in Springbok history that two players earn their 50th caps in the same match.

Du Plessis and Steyn become the 25th and 26th Springboks to play 50 Tests.

The last Springbok to play 50 Tests was Jannie du Plessis's younger brother Bismarck.

The Du Plessis's will become the first set of brothers ever to play in 50 Tests for South Africa.

More to follow....

South Africa: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Willie le Roux, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 Bryan Habana,  10 Morné Steyn, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Flip van der Merwe, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Replacements: 16 Bismarck du Plessis, 17 Gurthrö Steenkamp, 18 Coenie Oosthuizen, 19 Juandré Kruger, 20 Siya Kolisi, 21 Jano Vermaak, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Jan Serfontein.
 

Would've loved to see PSDT at least on the bench.

Yeah also saw that Pienaar is showing on the Supersport site. MMmmmm let's hope Rugby365's player 21 is correct ; )

Saffex he might be a bit conservative now, but I still think he has improved in some of his selections he made. We are steadily building and improving IMO. I have no doubt that PSDT and Eben will be our lock pairing soon.

Wallabies will provide stern test for us, but we should take it. I am also backing the Boks to take the Ellis Park Test as well against the AB's.

Go Bokke!

Funny that Mozart, the real one (Let's call him WA), should come into the discussion. Now, although I have always liked his work, I am not really that clued up with him and I am by no means a fundi. Ou Maaikie had me check up on a few things and to me, it is more appropriate to mention La finta semplice, rather than The Marriage of Figaro or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik when it comes to Heyneke Meyer. The Marriage of Figaro is indeed and opera while Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is a single compesition of music..... a serenade to be precise. It literally means "little serenade"

In any case, as I said, I think that the more appropriate WA Mozart opera would probably be La finta semplice. not because of the synopsis (story line) or the music, but more because of the fact that he got some flack from the Empress Maria Theresa. She had this to say when she declined to appoint Mozart in a permanent job, and I think that at this stage many would say something similar, should they be in a position to appoint Heyneke Meyer:

You ask me to take the young Salzburger into your service. I do not know why, not believing that you have need of a composer or of useless people. If however it would give you pleasure, I have no wish to hinder you. What I say is intended only to prevent your burdening yourself with useless people and giving titles to people of that sort. If they are in your service it degrades that service when these people go about the world like beggars.

Many people all over the world know who WA Mozart was. Not many know who Empress Maria Therese was.

Nice Googling there, ou Maaikie, but be that is it may, you have missed what I was saying. She did not know a musical genius, if you moered her in the face with one.

PS. It is too late now, but I am sure that if you had a poll, prior to this discussion, and you asked the members on this forum for instance, who of them knew who Mozart was and who of them knew (without searching on the internet) who Maria Therese was, you would have understood what I meant.

No Ceradyne, it literally means A Little Night Music, not little serenade

If you translate it directly, yes. Technically it is "serenade" or more specific "evening serenade"

www.reverso.net/text_translation.asp

translation.babylon.com/german/to-english/

www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-meaning-of/german-word-nachtmusik.html

Personally I think Heynecke Meyer is utilising his resources very well and his bashers are fast running out of ammunition. His critics used to rattle off about a dozen names they didn't agree with after every Springbok selection, then it became seven or eight, then five and now I see it's only one or two. I don't believe that's because Meyer's selections have dramatically improved, I think it's because the players are silencing the critics by their performances and Meyer is being proved right.

I do think Meyer went a bit overboard in his early selection when he picked just about every Bull he could think of and I was one of his fiercest critics but, I have to admit, after he dumped some of his sillier Bulls picks (like Jacques Potgieter, Werner Kruger and Wynand Olivier) I have slowly become a fan and in my opinion the only blind spot Meyer still has is Zane Kirchner.

This is a very good team and I like his "horses for courses" policy with regards to certain players . . . like using Adriaan Strauss when we play the Wallabies and the much more physical Bismarck du Plessis against the All Blacks. Meyer is doing an excellent job and anyone who disagrees, how many of you thought we'd be in with a shot at winning the RC this year?

Classical music (and any music for that matter) is always about personal taste, but as far as I'm concerned, while Mozart was a lot more prolific than Beethoven, Beethoven's best symphonies and concertos (piano concertos anyway) are better than anything Mozart ever wrote while Beethoven's sonatas . . . pieces like Pathetique, Moonlight and Apassionata . . . are among the most beatiful pieces of music ever written by anyone. As for opera, surely no-one can argue that Guiseppe Verdi is the greatest operatic composer of all time?

AQnd then right at the end, you hit the nail on the head. A Verdi fan myself. There are quite a number of Verdi pieces that later became "well-known" pop-songs. Songs like We believe in tomorrow by Freddy Breck, which was actually to the music of the Hebrew Slaves Choir from Nabucco.  Have a listen.

We believe in tomorrow.

Anybody who have the faintest knowledge of classical music (and I class myself probably at or below that level) should not know that Ludwig von Beethoven was deaf.