{"id":10898,"date":"2012-05-30T22:24:18","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T20:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/rugby-matfield-believes-du-preez-should-lead-springboks\/"},"modified":"2012-05-30T22:24:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T20:24:18","slug":"rugby-matfield-believes-du-preez-should-lead-springboks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-matfield-believes-du-preez-should-lead-springboks\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Matfield believes du Preez should lead Springboks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ken Borland<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">PRETORIA, South Africa<\/span> May 30 (Reuters) &#8211; Former South<br \/>\nAfrica captain Victor Matfield believes Fourie du Preez would be<br \/>\n&#8220;a great choice&#8221; to lead the Springboks in next month&#8217;s<br \/>\nthree-test series against England.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>New national coach Heyneke Meyer seriously considered<br \/>\nbringing lock Matfield out of retirement to lead the Springboks,<br \/>\nbut an International Rugby Board ruling that retired players can<br \/>\nnot play test rugby within six months of making their comeback<br \/>\nscuppered that idea.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Scrumhalf du Preez, who is playing in Japan for Suntory<br \/>\nGoliath, has been tipped by the South African media as the next<br \/>\nSpringbok captain, although it has been reported that<br \/>\ncontractual obligations to his club could rule him out of the<br \/>\nfirst test.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fourie would be a great choice as captain, I think he would<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>do very well. It&#8217;s important that the captain knows exactly<br \/>\nhow    Heyneke wants to play, he will be his voice on the field.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Plus he&#8217;s a fantastic player and everyone has huge respect<br \/>\nfor him,&#8221; Matfield told Reuters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Du Preez, who possesses one of the most accurate tactical<br \/>\nkicking boots in world rugby, was an integral part of the Blue<br \/>\nBulls teams who won four Currie Cups and a Super Rugby title<br \/>\nunder Meyer&#8217;s coaching between 2000 and 2007. He would fit<br \/>\nseamlessly into the structure-based game plan the new Springbok<br \/>\n coach is known to favour.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In terms of tactics, there&#8217;s nobody better than Fourie and<br \/>\n  he is a guy who Heyneke will trust. The kicking game is still<br \/>\n  very important in international rugby, but Fourie also gives<br \/>\n flow to the game,&#8221; Matfield said.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ken Borland PRETORIA, South Africa May 30 (Reuters) &#8211; Former South Africa captain Victor Matfield believes Fourie du Preez would be &#8220;a great choice&#8221; to lead the Springboks in next month&#8217;s three-test series against England. New national coach Heyneke Meyer seriously considered bringing lock Matfield out of retirement to lead the Springboks, but an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}