Jean may sit out Murrayfield test

Jean may sit out Murrayfield test by Gavin Rich 12 November 2012, 15:18
The Springboks may have an alternative captain leading them onto the field for their second tour match against Scotland at Murrayfield in Edinburgh on Saturday.
Coach Heyneke Meyer has said that while he intends keeping changes to a minimum out of respect for Scotland and the need to build winning momentum, he is considering giving his regular captain, Jean de Villiers, a rest.
Meyer was responding to a press conference at the team hotel in Edinburgh on where Western Province’s inform centre Juan de Jongh stood in his plans. The omission of De Jongh, the star of his team’s recent win over the Sharks in the Currie Cup final in Durban, was one of the talking points before the match against Dublin in Ireland last week.
“I definitely want to give Juan a chance, the reason I left him out last week was just because I wanted to keep changes to a minimum from the perspective of what we needed on defence,” said Meyer.
“I haven’t made up my mind completely about this yet, and I still need to talk to a few people, but I would like to institute a rotation policy in the midfield. I thought Jaco Taute played his best test so far against Ireland, so it is a case of whether we play Jaco and Juan together in the midfield, or whether we pair up Juan with Jean.”
Asked if that meant he was thinking of leaving out his captain, Meyer said that there was a chance De Villiers would not be leading the side at Murrayfield.
“I am thinking of giving Jean a rest this week as he has been struggling a bit with that hamstring injury that has been bothering him recently,” he said.
“I still believe fullback is Jaco Taute’s best position, and would love to play him there now, but I don’t want to make too many changes for the Scotland game. I think we should be looking to build momentum, and we did not play well last time out against Ireland. I have a lot of respect for Scotland.
“They may have lost heavily to the All Blacks but it was mainly in a period of 10 minutes that the All Blacks did most of the damage. Scotland scored three tries, which is not something we or Australia have managed against New Zealand this year.”
The Bok team will only be finalised later and named on Wednesday, but Meyer confirmed that Pat Lambie would continue at flyhalf.
“He didn’t have much opportunity to stamp his authority on the game in the first half but he showed some nice touches in the second and Pat also knows he is capable of better so I would like to back him and give him a chance to gain confidence going forward by building on his performance,” said Meyer.
Should De Villiers sit out the Murrayfield test, vice-captain Adriaan Strauss, who has rapidly stamped himself as an international player of quality in the absence of the injured Bismarck du Plessis, should be the man to lead the Boks.

Meyer made a mess with selection of the squad insofar as props and centers are concerned - hence his present problems.   He should have taken out insurance against a possibility that De Villiers would not recover fully and picked an additional center.   If De Jongh comes in - the attacking ability of the backline would be nullified completely.  Although Meyer would never say anything like that  in public - I think that was the actual reason for leaving him out in the test against the Irish. 

He may try and play Taute at 12 and De Jongh at 13 - but that would still mean a seriously bad situation.   Taute is better in attacking play then De Jongh, but the question remains would that in any way be effective especially bearing in mind that Taute's real position is at full back.

Meyer never admitted that he made a mistake and now calls up Malherbe as an additional prop - why did he not call up an additional center as well?     

Sharkbok - not a very convincing argument.   De Jongh 1,79 meters) is short and so is Jordaan (1,80 meters).  However, Jordaan (95 kgs)  is 7 kilos heavier than De Jongh (88 kgs) and in recent games  showed twice the muscle power compared to De Jongh.   The saving grace for De Jongh was  he scored a try in the CC-final after 16 very poor games  in the Super-series.   For some he became the "in-form" player because of that try.  In-form he definitely is not - matter of fact he was mediocre.