By Ken Borland
PRETORIA, South Africa, June 2 (Reuters) – South Africa
coach Heyneke Meyer failed to pick a captain and dropped
openside flanker Heinrich Brussow on Saturday when he named a
squad blending youth with experience to face England in a
three-test series.
Meyer is faced with a leadership vacuum after former captain
John Smit left to play in England while former vice captain
Victor Matfield retired from all rugby after last year’s World
Cup.
Stormers captain Schalk Burger, who appears to be the most
likely choice for the Springboks captaincy, has been battling a
knee injury and had already been ruled out of the series.
Local media had reported that former scrumhalf Fourie du
Preez, who has been playing in Japan, and Matfield could have
been tempted out of retirement as a stop-gap captaincy measure
for the series that begins on June 9 in Durban.
However Meyer said on Saturday that having spoken to du
Preez, the scrumhalf had said he was not up to the rigors of
international rugby.
“I have a lot of respect for Fourie but he knows my motto is
team first. I had a few meetings with him and he said he wasn’t
100 percent sure he’s at his best, having not played for
two-and-a-half months,” the coach told a news conference.
“It was a hard decision to leave him out but it shows the
character of the man that he told me to go with the youngsters
if I felt he was a 50-50 selection. I will now chat to the
senior players before naming my captain.”
Meyer also dropped Brussow, who is widely considered one of
the best openside flankers in the world, because changes to the
rule interpretations are resulting in more penalties at the
breakdown against his type of player.
Continued…
