Injury Prone Fat Albert in talks with Lions for SuperRugby

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Cape Town - Following hot on the heels of their signing of veteran prop Jannie du Plessis comes the news that the Lions are in talks with another former Springbok ahead of next year's Super Rugby season.

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The Johannesburg franchise have been hard hit by a number of departures and injuries to key players and are looking to fill the voids across the park ahead of the tournament which starts with a trip to Argentina to face the Jaguares for new coach Ivan van Rooyen on Saturday, February 1.


Apart from coach Swys de Bruin's exit, the Lions will also be without Sylvian Mahuza, Madosh Tambwe, Ruan Combrinck, Harold Vorster, Lionel Mapoe, Nic Groom, Kwagga Smith, James Venter, Stephan Lewies, Lourens Erasmus, Malcolm Marx, Robbie Coetzee and Jacobie Adriaanse - among others - in 2020.

In addition, Hacjivah Dayimani will split his attention between Super Rugby and playing for the Blitzboks, while skipper Warren Whiteley has a long-term injury which has sidelined him from rugby for the foreseeable future.

In a ray of potential positive news, the Lions on Wednesday confirmed they are in talks with former player and 43-Test Springbok, Willem Alberts.

Alberts, now 35, began his career at the Lions before moving to the Sharks and then on to French Top 14 side Stade Francais.

Stade Francais have endured a horrid start to their 2019/20 season, which saw the recent resignation of coach and director of rugby Heyneke Meyer.

Stade Francais currently find themselves rock-bottom of the Top 14 standings, a full seven points adrift of the next lowest side - after just nine matches.

Nicknamed the "Bone Collector" for his crunching tackles and strong carries, should Alberts put pen to paper it would be a huge boost for the Lions who finished a lowly ninth in this year's Super Rugby.

- Compiled by Garrin Lambley

What are t hey going to use him for?  A loosie he is not - he is too pace-deficient for that position.   Another Stade Francais  discard - why the hell is the Lions going nuts?       

Willem could take on both Deysel twins and flick them away like twigs.

Maybe - but a rugby loosie he never was  and never will be.  Rather a slow prop pretending to be a loosie and totally incapable of ball protection and recovery at breakdowns,    

It doesn't surprise me.

If you're going to bring a useless entity like Jannie aboard, then why not go all the way and include a few more hasbeens.

I wonder who will be next?

Thankfully Morne has already been taken.

That could be a good thing, SharkShit.

With old men like Alberts and Jannie on the pitch, we'll need all the physio assistance we can get.

I think we must accept that both the Lions and the Bulls engaged Mozart as t heir consultant for advice on contracting of the totally useless rugby geriatrics to display to younger players how not to play rugby,

He always and even recently advocate how good Morne Steyn was in the Barbarians game and Alberts and Jannie were always his favourites,  Wonder why he does not advise them to engage with Matfield to promote his return to play rugby - that would be Mozart's way if getting teams down to the level where the geriatrics can still play, but the teams will lose massively in games.      

The brains of the whole du Preez clan wouldn't amount to one satisfactory human brain. We have been hearing about the Deysel Twins since 2015.......so far these guys have been a big fat zero. And given loosies show young....I'm expecting zero.

Dumb, slow mentally, sans any model on how to make a difference....velociraptor hands.

Shark could you please give us an image of the Deysel Twins with velociraptor hands.

When it comes to selections  fitting of players into his very good game plan of Erasmus is paramount and of players do not fit in they will ultimately be phased out. - especially like happened to Mostert in the final phases of the WC - when he was used form the bench.   Another player was Esterhuizen.   Neither have any chance of getting into the Springbok squad in future,  

I am not sure about Serfontein - if he really was a consideration he would have been in the WC squad or called up when Kriel was to be replaced, ,    I also believe that in the case of the Du Preez tw ins the situation is not clear either,  The fact that they were not in the WC squad is an indication that they do not "fit in",   However, with Louw and Vermeulen out of contention for 2023 I think that the field is somewhat  open insofar as the no 8 position is concerned,          

The fact is we need two new loosies to replace Louw and Vermeulen.  Vermeulen might try to stay on for another year or so, but he is no the player he used to be.   Then we may need another opensider.

I like that youngster Cloete of the Stormers - he is provably the best option for openside replacement since Kolisi never plays a full match anyway,  And then there is Van Staden who is a very hard worker as well.   Another guy that would do well at 8 is Streicher of the Maties,

The competition will be wide for inclusion in the loosie department and that is also a good thing,

I am not particularly worried about the competition for selection but think on the whole the squad is well covered bar about 6 or 7 players I think we will need  to include in the next WC squad.

The best advice is never listen to Mozart - he always claim players who are slower than others - are faster - others are stupid and a lot of other negatives as well.       

sharkbok, unfortunately not all Springboks fall into your category of continues outstanding all round ability such as you definitely do not and never ever had,

Some Springboks other than you grow old but still have the desire to play and if a union wishes to pay for that old/fat/over the hill/desire that is great for the player.

So stop calling the ex-Boks old, fat, slow and find fault with them because they are not at your level of fitness, health and rugby skills.

I will keep checking the media for the Springbok schedule so that we can all sit back, watch and relax knowing that with you on the field victory is at hand.

How far are you off the 100 test CAP presentation water-boy?

@ArthurMartha John,

I take it you have never played rugby, and instead were a member of the school choir. I am yet to see any independent sensible thoughts from you - bar regurgitating a cliche from a news article.