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Sale won't see World Cup winner de Jager in action in Manchester until 2020

(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Lood de Jager, the World Cup-winning Springbok lock, is to facing shoulder surgery that will delay his debut for Sale Sharks for up to four months.

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De Jager suffered the injury early in the first half of South Africa’s 32-12 win over England in last Saturday’s final in Yokohama. 

He will have a scan on Wednesday to confirm the extent of the damage and the surgery that is required to put him on the road to recovery and a new rugby career in the English Premiership.

Sale boss Steve Diamond has assembled a strong South African contingent in his squad headed by World Cup-winning scrum-half Faf de Klerk, and de Jager, one of the Springboks starting locks, is certain to make a major impact in the English game once fit.

Diamond expects de Klerk, plus the England cup final pair Tom Curry and Mark Wilson, to be on duty for the club in their home Heineken Cup pool match versus La Rochelle on November 24.

(Continue reading below…)

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He told RugbyPass: “Lood is having a scan Wednesday and we are probably looking at an operation and three to four months out, so we will get him in the spring by the look of things.

“There is an old saying that you don’t miss what you have never had and we know we have a really good player on our hands. It will be great to have him the squad after his recovery.

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“I won’t be picking Faf, Tom and Mark until our second European game at home to La Rochelle, so they are going to have two weeks off,” added Diamond. 

“At the La Rochelle game we will be advertising the return of Faf, Tom and Mark and we saw in 2003 the impact of the England win had terms of interest in the sport and we want to build on having someone like Faf because there isn’t anyone in the sport like him. 

“In rugby, there isn’t anyone else who can go head to head with Jake Ball and then stand and talk to royalty in the dressing room after the World Cup final wearing a pair of Springbok budgie smugglers!

“We start our European matches away at Glasgow and I now have a squad that can have a dabble in the competition. After nine years of coaching I have managed to get into Europe five times and each time I have got a hiding. 

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“So, fingers crossed we can be competitive in what is our first season of spending up to the salary cap.”

Sale have managed one win out of their first three Premiership games but have picked up losing points against Gloucester and Bristol, an aspect of performance Diamond believes is vital as the season progresses. 

They now face Wasps on Friday night at home. Diamond added: “We were competitive right to the end of both of those games and could have won them. Getting a bonus is a little reward but last season we only managed six in total and ended up one point off fourth place.”

WATCH: How Rassie Erasmus was on the cusp of quitting as Springboks coach after a run of average results

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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