The good news from a Sharks point of view is that injured centre Meyer Bosman will be back in black for this weekend’s crunch home game against the Cheetahs.
While Marius Joubert didn’t do badly as a replacement at Loftus – and Riaan Viljoen did extremely well as first-choice goal-kicker – the former certainly doesn’t have as good a distributing game as Bosman does and failed to gel with Paul Jordaan on attack. The Sharks are also fortunately able to report a clean bill of health after the Loftus defeat and may even be bolstered by one or two returning Springboks this week, should Heyneke Meyer opt to release any players for Currie Cup duty.
Neither Pat Lambie nor Craig Burden has been used by the Bok coach against Argentina and one would expect that both would be allowed an opportunity to get 80 minutes against the Cheetahs.
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Good News.
Bosman was missed against the bulls as predicted.
If Lambie does get to play, where will they play him though? Probably at fullback, which imo won’t help his cause for a Bok spot at all.
Good news about Bosman, I think he’s experience in the backline will be important for us.
If we get Lambie back, my backline is:
McLeod
Lambie
Ludik
Bosman
Jordaan
Ndungane
Viljoen
@robdylan (Comment 4) :
I like..
Why are the Boks back in SA? Surely it would have made more sense to go to Aus and spend more time getting over jetlag etc. Travel is part of the life of a pro athlete so surely it’s not that they want to be home!? If it’s a selection issue, then surely it’ll only be a few players and it would require flying out only those guys. I know it’s off topic, but I thought the schedule was designed to accommodate the additional travel, ie give more time to get from Australasia to Argentina etc.
As for Lambie, he might as well stay here now that he’s home. HM won’t play him because he’s scared that he’ll be proved wrong in that PL is better than both the guys he’s picked ahead of him – the same reason he keeps him on the bench for 80mins every week. I’m sure there’s an U19 wing at the Bulls who can slot into the match 22 against Aus.
@ robdylan (Comment 4) I agree with all your choices there bar scrumhalf. I would give the youngster Reiach a chance to shine and push mccleod instead of a couple mins every week.
@Dunx (Comment 8) : I was very tempted, trust me…
@robdylan (Comment 4) : id start cobus 2 maybe it will light a fire under charls ass
When is Whitehead back?
What happened to conrad hoffman btw?
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 11) : 3 to 4 more weeks.
@Letgo (Comment 13) : I thought that was the case 4 weeks ago –
that’s like missing the entire CC.
@Poisy (Comment 12) : was thinking the same – surely he’s not still injured.
@rekinek (Comment 14) : No, as far as I know he and Step du Toit will be back for the second half of the CC, the first 6 weeks of the CC. So lets say 2 to 3 weeks… or maybe 4.
@Letgo (Comment 2) : I think Lambie has a better chance of kicking Kirchner than he does of booting Steyn.
Quite frankly, I don’t see where they would fit Lambie into the backline at this stage? Viljoen is performing at fly, Ludik is doing the same at fullback. One might suggest that he play inside center but that pushes the returning Bosman either to outside or onto the bench. Jordaan is a danger I wouldn’t want to bench although using him as a impact player could work. Viljoen could also always play inside.
Point is, someone is going to be a bit unfortunate if Lambie does return for this match. I just hope that it is not Lambie, again.