Mhambi is beside himself with excitement. The Springboks have qualified for the Rugby World Cup Final!
Scrum
Originally uploaded by fabdany.
According to most pundits the Springboks are favourites nogal. But they have one major Achilles heel. South Africa does not have a good scrummaging tighthead prop forward, and England has the most menacing loosehead prop namely Andrew Sheridan.
And as he proved in a game against Australia, he eats weak tightheads for breakfast. This causes an opposing scrum to reverse, winning the opposition ball, disrupting their structure and sapping opposition forward strength.
But there are good South African tight heads at the World Cup. In fact two of the best are Saffas. Malmesburys's Pieter De Villiers that plays for France, and Durbans Matt Stevens, England's tighthead prop forward.
In fact one could almost make up a whole and very powerful team of South Africans playing for other countries. South Africa is not the only country that exports players to others, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji all do. In fact so do New Zealand and England. But South Africa is one of the few top rugby nations that export players to other top rugby nations.
Daniel Vickerman plays for Australia (Cape Town)
Canada - DHT van der Merwe (Worcester), and Nick Trenkel (Randburg)
England - Mike Catt (Port Elizabeth) Matt Stevens (Durban) and now Nick Abendanon. (Johannesburg)
France - Pieter de Villiers (Malmesbury)
Italy - Carlo Dal Fava (Umtata), Rolland de Marigny (Durban)
Namibia - Lu-Wayne Botes (Johannesburg), Johannes Meyer (Bloemfontein), Jacques Nieuwenhuis (Brakpan), Piet van Zyl (Worcester)
USA - Philip Eloff (Mossel Bay), Chad Erskine (Pietermaritzburg), Owen Lentz (King William's Town)
Wales - Ian Evans (Johannesburg) Sphere: Related Content
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