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Snubbed Springboks duo sign for French giant

JJ Engelbrecht

French giants Clermont have swooped for a pair of snubbed Springboks.

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Stormers JJ Engelbrecht and Cheetahs Rudy Paige have signed deals with the French outfit.

The Top14 team, who is expected to lose 12 players for the duration of the World Cup, have opted to recruit the duo along with two other players as cover.

According to French club’s official website, Cheetahs scrumhalf Paige and Stormers centre Engelbrecht has signed short-term deals and are expected to play the first eight matches of the 2019/20 season.

Paige, who has 13 Test caps, will come in as cover for Scotland star Greig Laidlaw as well as injured France No.9 Kevin Viallard (knee).

While fellow Springbok Engelbrecht will full the void left by French centres Wesley Fofana and Damian Penaud who were both named in coach Jacques Brunel’s World Cup squad.

The other two players to have signed are Bath Max Lahiff and New Zealand loose forward Faifili Levave.

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Elsewhere Springboks captain Siya Kolisi will be given enough time to fully recover from his knee injury and will in all likelihood miss the opening Tests of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, in Johannesburg against Australia and in Wellington against New Zealand, in the next three weeks.

However, according to Rassie Erasmus, the SA Rugby Director of Rugby, Kolisi’s return to play could include some game time in the Currie Cup, which is sponsored by DirectAxis Financial Services.

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Erasmus confirmed on Wednesday that Springbok skipper will miss at least the opening fortnight of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship. However, Kolisi will remain in camp with the Springbok training group to continue with his rehabilitation programme.

According to Erasmus, the Springboks won’t rush Kolisi back into action: “We will probably a bit conservative with Siya to make sure he is ready for the Rugby World Cup, which is the most important part of the year.

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“We will wait for the results of his scans on Friday, and then we will take it from there and see what the return to play protocol will be.

“Siya will be training with us until we leave for New Zealand and then he will probably stay behind to play one or two Currie Cup games. Thereafter, we plan to get him back into playing Test match rugby, hopefully in the match against Argentina (in Pretoria on 17 August), and then it’s on the plane with us to Japan.

“I think if we push him now to go with us to New Zealand, we might end up with more than a 50 percent chance that he won’t go with us to the World Cup,” Erasmus explained.

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Bull Shark 5 hours ago
Rassie Erasmus' Boks selection policy is becoming bizarre

To be fair, the only thing that drives engagement on this site is over the top critiques of Southern Hemisphere teams.


Or articles about people on podcasts criticizing southern hemisphere teams.


Articles regarding the Northern Hemisphere tend to be more positive than critical. I guess to also rile up kiwis and Saffers who seem to be the majority of followers in the comments section. There seems to be a whole department dedicated to Ireland’s world ranking news.


Despite being dialled into the Northern edition - I know sweet fokall about what’s going on in France.


And even less than fokall about what’s cutting in Japan - which has a fast growing, increasingly premium League competition emerging.


And let’s not talk about the pacific. Do they even play rugby Down there.


Oh and the Americas. I’ve read more articles about a young, stargazing Welshman’s foray into NFL than I have anything related to either the north and south continents of the Americas.


I will give credit that the women’s game is getting decent airtime. But for the rest and the above; it’s just pathetic coming from a World Rugby website.


Just consider the innovation emerging in Japan with the pedigree of coaches over there.


There’s so much good we could be reading.


Instead it’s unimaginative “critical for the sake of feigning controversial”. Which is lazy, because in order to pull that off all you need to be really good at is:


1. Being a doos;

2. Having an opinion.


No prior experience needed.


Which is not journalism. That’s like all or most of us in the comments section. People like Finn (who I believe is a RP contributor).


Anyway. Hopefully it will get better. The game is growing and the interest in the game is growing. Maybe it will attract more qualified journalists over time.

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