Bok midfield plans derailed by injuries

INITIALLY, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer was trying to fill the gaping void left by Jaque Fourie at outside centre, but now his midfield problems have gone septic following a hospital ward’s worth of injuries.

When Meyer took over the Bok job in 2012 Fourie’s unavailability, at the time due to his Japanese club commitments, sparked a protracted search for a capable replacement.

Fourie might be back – after availing himself for Test rugby for a second time in four years, this time returning from retirement – but he is one of five centres in the current 49-man Bok squad who are either injured, or desperately need conditioning, out of a total of seven.

After missing part of the Japan Top League due to injury, Bok team doctor Craig Roberts said of Fourie: “He is not going to be considered for the first couple of games unless he shows he is where we want him from a conditioning perspective.”

It means that going into the season-opener against the World XV in two weeks and possibly against the Wallabies in Brisbane a week later, Meyer’s options are the fit and in-form Damian de Allende and the chunky, off-form JP Pietersen for the midfield.

At a push, captain Jean de Villiers, who ran in a Bok training jersey for the first time in seven months on Monday, could be available. Lionel Mapoe, Jan Serfontein and Frans Steyn are all out of action, the latter for two months.

“You need the players there even if they are injured,” said Meyer. “There are a lot of calls and plays they have to learn because there’s not a lot of time.

“Jaque has been injured and he hasn’t played much at his club and he only started training now. If he’s good enough, he’ll get game time in the last two games. You also want to build combinations ahead of the World Cup.

“The difficulty is that there are probably three guys that you can pick. Damian is probably the last man standing but he’s been in awesome form.”

Between the England incoming tour of 2012 and the end-of-year tour to Europe last year, Meyer used no less than eight players at outside centre: De Villiers, Jaco Taute, Juan de Jongh, J J Engelbrecht, De Allende, Pietersen, Serfontein and Fourie.

The coach was at times unlucky with injuries. When the combination of De Villiers and Serfontein seemed to be working well last year, the skipper suffered an horrific knee injury against Wales.

With just over two months left before the World Cup begins in September, the Boks are still without a settled midfield pairing.