De Villiers’s World Cup hopes in doubt

SPRINGBOK captain Jean de Villiers’s participation in next year’s Rugby World Cup could be in doubt after he sustained a serious knee injury in last night’s 12-6 defeat to Wales.

Bok coach Heyneke Meyer said that the 33-yearold centre had suffered a dislocated kneecap.

“I’m quite worried about Jean. He has dislocated his kneecap and the scans will show whether there is any associated damage,” he said.

If the associated damage is found to be torn knee ligaments, De Villiers could be out of rugby for anything from three to nine months, depending on whether it is a medial, posterior or anterior ligament. The last-mentioned – known as the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) – is the most serious, and if he is out for nine months, that would take him up to August next year.

Meyer felt that there had been two major turning points in the game – De Villiers going off and right wing Cornal Hendricks’s controversial yellow card with 17 minutes to go. Irish referee John Lacey inexplicably decided that Hendricks had taken out Welsh fullback Leigh Halfpenny in the air.

Asked if he felt Lacey’s call was an unfair decision, Meyer said: “That’s not up to me, that’s for a referee to decide. We play by the laws and worked really hard on that, and the ref is always right and we have to face that.

“We need to look at our tactics as I don’t know if it’s worthwhile going up in the air anymore, because it’s always a 50-50. We are very big on discipline the whole year – if you look at the championship, I think we gave away the least amount of cards.

“I’m not saying that it was the wrong decision today, or that we lost because of that. But I believe it is a grey area in the game and you don’t want any grey areas.”

De Villiers’s absence in the last quarter was probably telling in the end as he is the one who brings a sense of calm when the going gets tough, but those mistakes were avoidable.

“It is a very disappointing result. I was always said our character was going to be tested and that it was going to be tough. We always knew our depth would be under pressure and a lot of youngsters out there, some of them put up their hand and others need more experience,” said Meyer.