WHO SHOULD BE THE NEW BOK CAPTAIN?; Rugby 365

EXCLUSIVE: AUSSIEBOER, IN HIS LATEST CONTRIBUTION TO RUGBY365, TAKES A LOOK AT THE CANDIDATE THAT CAN CAPTAIN THE SPRINGBOKS.

Heyneke Meyer has a crucial decision to make this week. He must decide on a new Springbok captain, with Jean de Villiers out of the picture.

De Villiers, who was injured at a World Cup yet again and will return to South Africa on Monday, has announced his retirement from international rugby.

So who must captain the Boks for the remainder of the World Cup?

AussieBoer will pick Damian De Allende at inside centre and at outside centre the young Jesse Kriel for all the remaining games.

Give Jan Serfontein his only starting chance against the United States.

Who do you think should captain the Boks now?

Victor Matfield: He has captained the Boks in 22 Tests, with 16 wins - which gives him a 73 percent success rate. While Lodewyk de Jager has been so impressive in the Tests this year; will it be another John Smit/Bismarck du Plessis episode - like the one we had at the 2011 World Cup? Yes, critics will quickly tell how many balls Matfield took in the line-outs against Samoa. Let us be honest neither Japan nor Samoa are line-out specialist.

Schalk Burger: He has one Test as captain a lost that. He is part of the current leadership. However, will Burger make the starting XV? Duane Vermeulen, Willem Alberts and Francois Louw has been the trio in most of the Tests when available.

Fourie du Preez: He has a brilliant rugby brain and has proved himself as a leader even during the Pieter de Villiers era. He has not captained the Boks at Test level yet.

Bismarck du Plessis and Adriaan Strausswill create selection problems and dare we go down that road - of John Smit keeping better hookers out of Bok team due to his captaincy position. Du Plessis' track record with the occasional disciplinary issue counts against him.

Duane Vermeulen: He must have been a favourite to take over the captaincy next year; if he had not decided to leave the Republic after the World Cup. Now is his big chance!

Francois Louw: He is an outside option as he captains Bath and knows the conditions. However, that is not enough to be ahead of other candidates.

The question is: Will Matfield and Du Preez last and survive all the games?

The problem is that - with the exception of Adriaan Strauss - none of the above will be able to lead the Boks towards the next World Cup and play all their rugby in the Republic.

I still don't think that the captain now has to be the captain when the next four year's building phase starts next season.

AussieBoer will appoint Duane Vermeulen as captain for the rest of the tournament.

He is a certainty of his place on merit in the starting line up!

AussieBoer (Kevin D)
@rugby365com

 Bismark has little chance - perhaps zero chance. We will have to see if Matfield play against the Scots. He has an injury and they have to manage his time anyway. If Matfield dosen't play I would go with Duane Vermeulen or Burger.

 My pick has been Vermeulen for the last 3 years already, but I don't see that happening. 

Problem is there is a serious faction in the squad who despises Matfield and that does not only mean the Du Plessis Brothers, but also the Bulls players in the squad - eg Strauss, Nyakane, Paige,  Pollard, Serfontein, etc., where Matfield was unpopular as attacking coach.    You cannot have animosity towards a captain of the squad by players and if Meyer was not hesitating about the issue - he would have made the captaincy announcement already.   
I think that the captaincy should be given to players like Vermeulen or Strauss - the only problem is that I do not think the captaincy will go to a foreign contract player.    

 Mike, no foreigner will lead the Boks next year and Vermeulen's last match was still for s local team. Matfield will probably get the job although I think that it won't be a bad thing if the Boks are captained by someone without the baggage of too much history with the team. Kinda like a fresh approach. 

 I think that Meyer would make Matfield the coach despite everything - but he will have to consult with SARU on that one and I think Matfield is just carrying too much negative baggage.   Personally I think the likely candidate would be Burger or Du Preez for the rest of the tournament.
Next year the whole scenario would change and we may see one of the younger captains emerging as captain with a view to the 2019 WC.  There are in fact two likely candidates who are at present captaining the CC teams - who is likely to qualify for certain selection as players and those are Kriel and Labuschagne, with Van der Walt having an outside chance at 8.                

 Source Tokkie....produce your source. 

 This has been all over the media and the latest incident with Bismarck was the third one involving him and Matfield - all over the media.
There was a recent thread on this site about Matfield and the fact that he was going to take up  the contract with at the time Bath - but ended up with a contract with Northampton.  To enter to that agreement Matfield would have to be released from his  coaching contract with the Bulls.  
That article clearly stated that the younger players in the Bulls squad was very unhappy with Matfield carrying change room stories to Ludeke amongst others.  There would be support for Matfield's release from his contract and that was done in record time subsequently allowing him to sign the agreement with Northampton.
Your dense friend repeatedly denied the existence of the relative thread and subsequently found it.
   

 Strauss would be my vote.

We all saw the story about Bismarck...his omission from the team says that was settled in Matfield's favour. It's a carry over from the dispute in the game where Victor schooled Stephanie. As for the other stuff, that sounds like a bit of sour grapes because Victor is leaving. Victor is and has been for some time the effective leader of the pack. The only way HM would change that is if he intended to demote the man. I can't see that happening.

Du Preez has only stated in the past that he doesn't like the captaincy role, he prefers to just do his job. 
Strauss is not inferior to Bismarck, who was not the best hooker in SA in Smits time anyway (had a poor 2011). Strauss is the most obvious choice. Duane is more the follow my lead captain, I prefer Strauss as he is more intelligent and has the experience of leading teams who are often out matched for talent yet scrap to play beyond themselves. 
I don't see anyone else I would want to even consider, aside from Schalk

 Why it should be Victor of course ,or some guy who runs on the pitch from the crowd .

 And I wouldnt trust that Bismark bloke ,going on that pic his eyes are suspiciously close together ......

 This story of Victor schooling Du Toit was the biggest load of BS ever  - but that was not the issue.  The issue had nothing to do with Du Toit at all - what had to do with it was the fact that when Bismarck was away from the ball, Matfield went for Bismarck when he was not looking back and Bismarck lost his temper and threw Matfield on the grass like a rag doll.
Mozart had it wrong as per normal - the argument in the Japan game involved Jean as well - not only Matfield and I think that was the reason for Bismarck's omission from the team for the Samoa game.  Our chorus of idiots still does not realize that the Japan disaster was substantially the fault of Matfield as well.
I agree that Burger would be a better choice as captain - that is why I believe that Matfield did not take over the captaincy automatically when the retirement of Jean was announced.    If we reach the play-offs playing Matfield as a starter would become problematic since he definitely is not physical enough and De Jager performed better than him consistently this year.  The captain should be a consistent starter in matches in any event.