Junior Springbok Back Line

Before the game I was very worried about our back line.    Starting off I thought Van der Walt may be a problem - but as it turned out he had a very good game - so that was not an issue here.   Pollard is class as an 18 year old - still in school.  Hope the youngster gets through school - he just missed 5 weeks of study.

Serfontein was phenominal - both on attack and defence.   I think this guy has the X Factor - he will be in the Springbok team for the next WC - and would be an excellent bench selection in the very near future.  Have to get past Francois Steyn though and that would be difficult to achieve.

Van Wyk was average - but not really in the class of some other players out with injury 

However, we had a problem with the full back and the two wings.   Leyds tried - but he is not the real deal at full back.   To my mind he is not sttong enough - maybe fast - but he tends to isolate himself and some of his kicks caused problems - witnesss the Junior All Black try - which came after one of his kicks,   We really neded a top class full back in this case.  

Unfortunately we lost three of the top back line juniors because of the injuries to Jordaan, Howard and Small-Smith.   As Beeno said in another posting - they would have made a huge difference to back line performance.   Put them poutside of Serfonetin and the AB's would have been in serious trouble from tthe back line as well.

Mike you need to learn to reserve judgement and not decide a player is not up to standard after one game. After the Ireland game you were telling us all how average Serfontein and Howard were. They soon changed your mind.

Now after one game you say v/Wyk is not up to standard, give the guy a break, it was his first match, I dont think he got the ball once down the line and for the rest tackled well. Do you think Meyer would have invited him to the Bok training camp if he was that average?

Rhule showed in the game against Argentina that he is a class act and he is. He got very little ball tonight. Mbovane and Leyds are too small for rugby at a higher level. One can only imagine what this side would have done had Goosen been at 10. Pollard is a class act, but Goosen is in a different class. We also must remember that we lost our first choice 9 before the comp started. Luiters would have been the starting 9.

Another big name missing was Serfonteins Grey Bloem and SA Schools centre partner, Dries Swanepoel. Both have been snapped up by the Bulls. Swanepoel has been out injured since late last year and by all accounts he is just as good as Serfontein, some say better - time will tell.

Then there was Bishops sensation Tim Swiel who plays 10 or 15, he was also not considered due to injury. He had been training with the Stormers pre season. Look him up on YouTube, he is awesome.

Next years Baby Bok backline will have 10.Pollard 12.Serfontein 13.Swanepoel 15.Swiel......there is also SA Schools sensation Tyler Fisher who is a muscle bound 13 from the Sharks.....he, Swanepoel and Serfontein were the SA Schools centres