Heyneke has fullback dilemma for Paris
Willie le Roux’s man of the match award against Scotland would have pleased supporters of the mercurial Cheetahs player, but his impressive performance in the wet weather may not necessarily mean he will be at fullback for the Springboks in Saturday’s final game of the tour against France.
Bok coach Heyneke Meyer stressed after the 28-0 win over Scotland in Murrayfield on Sunday that the game was not a trial for the last game of the tour here in Paris. He said the performances in that game would not weigh on his selections for Stade de France, and that the team to play was clear in his mind and had been all tour.
“Some people may not believe this, but I do do a bit of planning, and the players know when they are going to be used and when they are not going to be used,” said Meyer.
So if Meyer had decided his team for Paris before departure from South Africa, was Le Roux part of it? That is a good question if you consider that Pat Lambie was the man who lined up in the No15 jersey against Wales in the first match of the tour. Lambie didn’t stay there long, and not long after his brave effort to fall on a rolling ball under advancing Welsh feet to help set up the counter-attack that led to Jean de Villiers’ try, he had to move to flyhalf after Morne Steyn was injured.
Steyn was eventually pronounced fit enough to sit on the bench in Edinburgh after being in doubt for most of the week, and he got some game time shortly before the end. So he will be available for selection for the France game, and Meyer is likely to entrust him with the No10. That will leave the question on what to do with Lambie, and it will be interesting to see if Meyer will return to the selection that he started the tour with.
Meyer always said the middle game, the one against Scotland, would be the one where he spreads his net a bit to see if some players would “sink or swim”, which was another way of saying that the team for the Welsh test was the first choice side that would play again in Paris.
Le Roux though has done a great job in the 140 minutes he has spent on the field at fullback on this tour. Meyer praised him for his effort at the Millennium Stadium, where the coach admitted the reserve fullback was under pressure after making defensive mistakes against the All Blacks in Johannesburg in the final Castle Lager Rugby Championship game.
He didn’t single out Le Roux at the post-match press conference at Murrayfield, instead heaping praise on Lambie for his play at flyhalf, and on Bakkies Botha for his solid comeback to international rugby. But Le Roux was the official man of the match and it will be hard to ignore his claim to continue as the starting fullback against France.
Apart from fullback and prop, where he has to choose between Lourens Adriaanse and Coenie Oosthuizen for a starting place, the rest of the team looks clear cut, with Ruan Pienaar slated to replace Fourie du Preez at scrumhalf now that Du Preez has returned home.
Meyer has been happy with the progress made by the other members of his Japanese connection, JP Pietersen and Jaque Fourie, and both now look a lot more ready to face France than they did in the game against Wales.
