{"id":14021,"date":"2012-08-29T15:24:05","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T13:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/rugby-under-fire-meyer-recalls-louw-to-springboks-squad\/"},"modified":"2012-08-29T15:24:05","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T13:24:05","slug":"rugby-under-fire-meyer-recalls-louw-to-springboks-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-under-fire-meyer-recalls-louw-to-springboks-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Under-fire Meyer recalls Louw to Springboks squad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ken Borland<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 &#8211; South Africa coach Heyneke Meyer on<br \/>\nWednesday recalled flanker Francois Louw and named uncapped<br \/>\nnumber eight Duane Vermeulen and flyhalf Johan Goosen in his<br \/>\nsquad for Rugby Championship matches in Australia and New<br \/>\nZealand.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa opened their Rugby Championship campaign<br \/>\nagainst debutants Argentina, winning 27-6 in Cape Town before<br \/>\nbeing held to a shock 16-16 draw in Mendoza last weekend.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Amidst huge criticism of the game plan the Springboks have<br \/>\nemployed so far this year, Meyer suggested some willingness to<br \/>\nchange when he gave first call-ups to Vermeulen and Goosen.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Vermeulen, 26, has been a star for the Stormers with his<br \/>\npowerhouse displays from the back of the scrum, but several<br \/>\ninjuries have prevented him from being chosen earlier for the<br \/>\nSpringboks.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old Goosen sprung to prominence in last year&#8217;s<br \/>\nIRB Junior world championship before making a prolific<br \/>\nSuperRugby debut for the Cheetahs this year, until a serious<br \/>\nshoulder injury ruled him out of action from the beginning of<br \/>\nMay until last weekend.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I regard both of them as world-class rugby players. If it<br \/>\nwasn&#8217;t for injuries, Duane would have been a Springbok long ago.<br \/>\nI also believe Johan has a long career ahead of him at test<br \/>\nmatch level and we will expose him when and how we feel it will<br \/>\nbenefit the player and the team best,&#8221; Meyer said in a statement<br \/>\nreleased by the South African Rugby Union on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The lack of a specialist fetcher in the Springbok squad had<br \/>\nalso been criticised, with Louw getting a summons from Meyer<br \/>\ndespite the fact that he now plays his rugby in England for<br \/>\nBath.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A raft of injuries in South Africa&#8217;s loose forward stocks<br \/>\nhave also complicated matters, with veterans Schalk Burger and<br \/>\nJuan Smith, Heinrich Brussow and new Stormers sensation Siya<br \/>\nKolisi all ruled out for now, while Ryan Kankowski is currently<br \/>\nplaying rugby in Japan.<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 JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 &#8211; South Africa coach Heyneke Meyer on Wednesday recalled flanker Francois Louw and named uncapped number eight Duane Vermeulen and flyhalf Johan Goosen in his squad for Rugby Championship matches in Australia and New Zealand. South Africa opened their Rugby Championship campaign against debutants Argentina, winning 27-6 in Cape [&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-14021","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\/14021","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=14021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}