{"id":13533,"date":"2012-08-15T14:48:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/rugby-daniel-to-make-first-test-start-for-springboks\/"},"modified":"2012-08-15T14:48:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:48:00","slug":"rugby-daniel-to-make-first-test-start-for-springboks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-daniel-to-make-first-test-start-for-springboks\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Daniel to make first test start for Springboks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Jason Humphries<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">CAPE TOWN<\/span> Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Keegan Daniel will make his<br \/>\nfirst test start for South Africa when he lines up at number<br \/>\neight for their Rugby Championship opener against Argentina in<br \/>\nCape Town on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Daniel, 27, who captained the Sharks to the Super Rugby<br \/>\nfinal this season, has made three substitute appearances for the<br \/>\nSpringboks since making his test debut against Ireland in 2010.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Daniel starts in place of the Pierre Spies, who was ruled<br \/>\nout of the tournament on Tuesday with a finger injury.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While Daniel has experience at the back of the scrum, his<br \/>\nregular position is as a flanker and concerns have been raised<br \/>\nthat, at 1.88 metres and weighing 94 kgs he may be too small for<br \/>\nthe international game.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer rejected these suggestions on<br \/>\nWednesday and clearly has no qualms about Daniel&#8217;s ability to<br \/>\nperform at the highest level.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Keegan has been playing really well in Super Rugby and he<br \/>\nhas put up his hand,&#8221; Meyer told a news conference in Cape Town.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a setback losing someone of Pierre&#8217;s experience but I<br \/>\nthink that Keegan is the logical choice to replace Pierre. It is<br \/>\na step up and it is in his hands now to see if he can play at<br \/>\nthis level. What you lose in physicality with Keegan you gain<br \/>\nwith the X-factor he brings to the team,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s starting XV to face Argentina features six<br \/>\nchanges to the team who drew 14-14 with England in the third<br \/>\ntest in June.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jason Humphries CAPE TOWN Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Keegan Daniel will make his first test start for South Africa when he lines up at number eight for their Rugby Championship opener against Argentina in Cape Town on Saturday. Daniel, 27, who captained the Sharks to the Super Rugby final this season, has made three [&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-13533","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\/13533","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=13533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}