Jesse Kriel going home, Damian Willemse gets called up . . .

Jesse Kriel's hamstring "niggle" is obviously more than just a niggle and he's going back home.

Damian Willemse will replace him in the squad.

You can read the full story here.

Good exposure for the young man if he actually gets a run. Getting him on the park against Canada will probably be a good idea.

I could get behind the idea of bringing him off the bench or starting him at 12 with either of Am or Duh Allende at 13. Or start Duh against Canada and move him to 13 when you bring Willemse on.

Sarries can't be pleased considering they signed him to be WC cover.

From the article it seems that his ability to cover multiple positions gave him preference. Maybe Rassie realized the squad is low on impact players.

Well we have lost our strongest tighthead and best 13.

Play Willemse at 13. He has pace, can break a line and distributes well. Could put the wings away. Must definitely start against Canada and come off bench against Italy.

The squad is certainly low on outside centres now.

If Lukhanyo Am gets crocked then we won't have a single player with any recent experience of playing in the #13 jersey.

Rassie has picked a form starting 15 that one cannot really fault. This is a tough pack and will give the Italians a very hard time. No Willemse on bench is one quible and two locks plus Steph as lock cover.

Rassie looks prepar ed for a forwards battle. Full tight five on bench.

South Africa's next encounter is against Italy in Shizuoka on Friday (11:45 SA time).

Teams:

South Africa

15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Tendai Mtawarira

Substitutes: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Franco Mostert, 21 Francois Louw, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Frans Steyn

Duh Allende played there a lot during his early years in the green and gold.

Won't make much difference if he goes 12 or 13......

Wings still won't see the ball unless they come looking or Willie takes over.

What happened to Jan Serfontein, is he crocked are to fat from all of the French pastries? 

He would have been a perfect replacement given that he is pretty decent at 13, not to mention Lionel Mapoe that can cover wing. 

Not sure why you would have so many players that can play 10 and 15

Nothing wrong with Willemse distribution skills so play him at 13. He, Kolbe and Willemse moving up the right wing etc will cause problems. 

Strzok

So Willemse is sitting on a bench at Green Point?  He can cover all of flyhalf, Full Back and Center.

If Pollard gets injured we have two duds as possible replacements (Steyn and Jantjies) and that was already a major problem.   Willemse should have been in the squad already instead of Fatso.

Fact is Serfontein has not played any rugby since April and Erasmus is not going to go the idiotic Meyer way and pick players on reputation. ;   .  

Strzok

So Willemse is sitting on a bench at Green Point?  He can cover all of flyhalf, Full Back and Center.

If Pollard gets injured we have two duds as possible replacements (Steyn and Jantjies) and that was already a major problem.   Willemse should have been in the squad already instead of Fatso.

Fact is Serfontein has not played any rugby since April and Erasmus is not going to go the idiotic Meyer way and pick players on reputation. ;   .  

13 is the hardest position to defend on the pitch. Unwise it is for young Padawan to be dropped into games at RWC with little experience.(Yoda voice)

Rooinek

I differ from you in this case.  Mapoe was given a chance in 2016/2017 and failed badly on test level. His defense was poor and not acceptable,

I think that Erasmus is more worried about cover at flyhalf than at center,   The present cover is hopeless.

Is something happens to Am during a match he would move De Allende to 13 and move Pollard to 12.   

Erasmus made two major mistakes in WC squad selection and those were the inclusion of Jantjies - who never succeeded in taking a step up from Super Rugby to test rugby - and the miserable Fat Fransie - who in 2012 and subsequently has been a total failure in whatever position he played in.   

His other mistakes were  Louw and Mostert.   Bad choic es for various reasons.             

Is DA proactive enough to defend at 13 though? Am has the rush down almost to a science, his judgement and timing is excellent.

Shall we go into the tackling record of De Allende and Am in the WC  and of Mapoe in Super Rugby as well as the tests he played in previously.  Better not -  because Strzok and Comey is going to be shown up as utterly stupid again.    

Sb

One has to look at Jantjies on test level to see how really flawed he is as a flyhalf.   Jantjies developed a bad habit in the past year and that is to run a few steps towards the inside center and then makes hospital passes to the unfortunate guy.  

Steyn is just a hopeless flyhalf - that is why his club is getting rid of him after playing him at full back in the past season for a while.   I think the reason for inclusion of Jantjies to fill a quota and Steyn because Willemse came back from injury only the week before squad announcement for the WC and at the time Erasmus advised him to go and play for Saracens to keep him active and intended to call him up anyway should it be necessary to replace any  backline player outside of scrummie anyway,

Coming up in the last round robin round game against Canada it is likely that Pollard will be on the bench  and Willemse being used   That would allow for Nkosi to be used as another bench backline player.

I think Mostert is toast as well - physicality too week to contribute to the Tight 5 and a very poor open field defender as well.        

Strzok

What is the difference between a  "process tackle" and an ordinary tackle?  Have you not been exposed enough as a BS spreader already,

What you came up with in the past is that a player you dislike make "process tackles" because he average three times more tackles per game than your favourite duds do?  Is that still the case?  :LM AO   

Shall we go into the tackling record of De Allende and Am in the WC

You're not going to find the value Am delivers on defense in the stats. You'll have to actually watch what he does on the field. I'll see if I can find a few examples when I have time.

Here are two examples from the AB game. First one he cuts off a pass to the outside, second he hits Cane man and ball to force a turnover. On the stat sheet the first one will go down as a missed tackle, but the stat sheet won't tell you that it was a fine piece of judgement that cut off a dangerous situation on the outside and forced play back into traffic.

When peep say that certain players failed under Coetzee, one has to ask which players didn't fail.

It's a very short list.

What reference is Coetzee's tenure really good for other than how badly one can screw a team up when there isn't any evident gameplan?

Pakie

Am plays with heart. Always a plus.

While not being athletically superior to Kriel, and maybe not naturally as gifted, I'm happy to give him an extended run.

Ariel has shown us as much as he can with DDA inside him, so we may as well shop around a bit.

A fit RJVR is still better than all of them. Breaking tackles, passing, support play and defence.

If he was taken in and looked after, we'd have a real terrorist of the Nonu variety in our back line now. 

Alas, he was a Lion.

RJVR hit the scene as the new kid on the block to replace Jean Devilliers. A few injuries later and he was clumsy, fat and slow. He can barely keep his boep under his shirt.

Throw in that he can't pass or catch. How can someone be a professional sportsperson with such a low level of basic skill 

clever duplicate

Not looking that fat, slow or clumsy here...

https:// youtube.com/watch?v=IJjURxdnjBg

This is pretty good news. Play Wippemse at 10 or 12. I think Pawlard is a better bet at 12 anyways. Problem solved and Bokkies upgraded. Get some kind of vision going at 12 because the other dead heads are useless. 

@Plum, that video was ok. However the very first instance he knocks the ball on due to poor handling skills in contact. He does show a few good offloads, but most of the time in a game he will cut back inside and run into a brick wall. His error rate is very high. 

He lost his step when he went on a prop conditioning program.  He had much more acceleration and step before this fitness program. 

If I was Harrassmus, I'd play Jantjies at fly half and Pollard at 12.

Pollard has lost his mojo at 10 but is a very powerful runner and when he does decide to run, he nearly always makes it over or past the gain line, ideal from a 12. 

He's also far more likely to hit a gap than the one dimensional DDA.

Jantjies does have his faults but he can put boot to ball and would have Pollard outside of him to at least take the ball up if the defence is right up on him and he is in the crap.