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Damian Willemse signing a win for all concerned

Damian Willemse of the Stormers passes the ball to his team mate Siya Kolisi

After Saracens secured the signing of Damian Willemse yesterday as a medical joker, the deal has been seen as one that benefits everyone involved.

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The 21-year-old arrives at Allianz Park from Currie Cup outfit Western Province, and will provide cover for the injured Alex Goode and Max Malins for the next three months.

Capable of playing fly-half or fullback, the five-cap Springbok is seen as one of South Africa’s most promising young players, and was unlucky to miss out on Rassie Erasmus’ World Cup squad. This is a player of undoubted class that is joining the European champions, who will not just be simple injury cover, but rather an asset to the team.

Stylistically, Willemse is similar to Goode, and will surely play a similar role to what the European Player of the Year does at Saracens, although the South African perhaps has slightly more pace. Regardless, both are skilful ball players capable of unlocking any defence.

It is no surprise that Saracens fans on social media are excited by this signing, particularly with so many players set to be away for the start of the season at the World Cup. The Premiership season starts in just over a month’s time, so Willemse will cover for the absent internationals, as well as Goode and Malins, and will ensure the reigning Premiership champions make a strong start to their title defence.

However, South African fans are also taking great positives out of this move. As it is now near the end of the South African rugby season, and this is only a short deal, this will provide a great opportunity for the utility back to develop before returning for the next Super Rugby campaign with the Stormers in 2020.

More immediately, however, is the fact that Willemse is likely to be one of the leading players to be called up should there be an injury to any South African player during the World Cup. Remaining active with Saracens will mean he is up to scratch should he need to fly over to Japan.

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Ultimately, the most encouraging thing for fans of Willemse is that he is joining one of, if not the best team in the northern hemisphere, who have a reputation for developing players. Willemse only needs to look at the likes of his compatriots Schalk Brits and Vincent Koch as examples of players whose games grew significantly after arriving in north London. For such a young player, this could be a valuable three months.

This is what has been said:

https://twitter.com/dunxxB/status/1168593932256763904?s=20

The only downside of this deal from Saracens’ perspective is that they could lose Willemse should he be called up to the Springboks. If not, a versatile player like this could prove to be crucial at the beginning of the season.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
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Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

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The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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