an early start
Mail & Guardian Reporters
MANY people were surprised when Carel du Plessis was appointed the new Springbok coach this week. With little previous coaching experience and the British Lions tour looming, Du Plessis has been thrown in at the deep end after the sudden departure of the disgraced Andre Markgraaf.
The new coach won’t be holding national trials because most of the country’s top talent will be on display in the Super 12 tournament, starting on Saturday when Northern Transvaal take on New Zealand’s Auckland Blues at Loftus Versveld. On Sunday Transvaal travel to Bloemfontein to take on Free State in another Super 12 first round match.
The Super 12 matches against the top teams from Australia and New Zealand will tell Du Plessis all he needs to know about South Africa’s strengths and weaknesses before he plans his strategy against the British Lions.
Meanwhile the Lions selectors have delivered a slap in the face to the England three-quarters Phil de Glanville, Jon Sleightholme and Tony Underwood by leaving them out of the preliminary squad of 62 announced last week. Will Carling was not considered, having already ruled himself out of contention.
Surprisingly Ireland have 13 players, the same number as Wales, in the squad which is otherwise dominated by England with 27, 16 of whom are not in the national team. Only nine Scots have been included.
The omission of Sleightholme, the Bath wing who has scored three of England’s 10 Five Nations tries, will mystify his many supporters, particularly as the inexperienced Irish wing Dennis Hickle has been picked. Underwood, who like Sleightholme scored two tries in England’s 46-6 win over Ireland, also has reason to feel hard done by after a long struggle to regain fitness after knee surgery.
The number of good international centres playing in the British Isles has squeezed out the England captain De Glanville, whose variable form for club and country has provoked calls for his Bath team-mate Jeremy Guscott to be reinstated. Guscott and the England A centre Will Greenaway, one of three uncapped Englishmen in the squad, are regarded by some as a potential Test partnership for England and the Lions.
De Glanville has claimed that rugby politics, rather than his ability as a player, were the reason for his omission from the squad. De Glanville suggested that a personal rift with Lions manager Fran Cotton had virtually killed off his prospects of selection.
“International selection is a personal thing and it’s no secret that I do not get on with Fran Cotton,” he said. “When I was one of the England players’ representatives during difficult early negotiations with the Rugby Football Union this season I had some interesting discussions with him. When he was subsequently appointed Lions manager I thought it was unlikely I would be going to South Africa.”