Injury worries for SA
Published by Maverick June 11th, 2007 in Test Matches, Rugby, Springboks, Currie Cup. Tags: No Tags.
The physical encounter with Samoa has left Jake White with a few injury worries leading into the Tri-Nations game this Saturday.
Enrico Januarie (knee), Luke Watson (rib), Ashwin Willemse (hand),Wayne Julies (bump on head) and John Smit (blood) all had to leave the field this past Saturday and will be undergoing medical tests today to determine the damage. Add to the list Fourie du Preez (shoulder), Bryan Habana (knee) and Andre Pretorius (hamstring/buttock) and it starts getting worrying.
Enrico Januarie is likely to be out for up to 4 weeks with his knee injury. Fourie du Preez should be available for the second Tri-Nations Test on the 23rd of June. Luke Watson, Andre Pretorius and Bryan Habana will be monitored closely by the medical staff and reassessed before the Springboks go to Australasia.
I don’t think there is too much to qorry about:
Januarie - crap
Watson - who cares, was a token anyway and is too small to compete against the likes of oz & nz
Willemse - good player, but is not match hardened having missed most of the S14 anyway. Murray, Pietersen etc are excellent replacements
Julies - no major loss given our depth
bottom line for 2007 is winning the world cup. it must be our collective number 1 goal. Getting Du Preez and Habana right might mean not playing them over the course of the tri-nations. if so, that’s fine we have bigger fish to fry.
I believe South Africa (unlike other years) will gain the bonus points against the kiwis and oz by scoring more than 4 tries in each home game, which will set us up superbly in any case
GO BOKKE
I absolutely agree with everything you said, except that I think Willemse might do a thing or 2. All the others like u mentioned are super crap. Especially Januarie.
Its critical that pretorius and januarie start in te world cup as januarie’s defence is light years a head of du preez and although james is this “big hit tacker” the other day he hardly made 1 tackle never mide big ones