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Springboks call up five players, including uncapped provincial hooker Ntubeni

The South Africa team lining out on Saturday is very different to last weekend in Salta (Photo by Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images)

Uncapped Western Province hooker Scarra Ntubeni and provincial team-mate Wilco Louw (prop) have been called up to the Springbok squad in Pretoria where the Boks will be based for the week in preparation for their Test match on Saturday against Argentina.

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Meanwhile, three other familiar faces also re-joined the Springbok squad in the capital city – regular Springbok captain Siya Kolisi (WP), fellow loose forward Marco van Staden from the Blue Bulls as well as WP utility back Dillyn Leyds.

The five players joined up with the returning Springbok squad at the team hotel on Monday and later took part in the Springboks’ closed evening training session held at Loftus Versfeld.

The Boks returned to South Africa earlier in the day from Argentina where they were crowned as the 2019 Rugby Championship winners following a comprehensive 46-13 triumph over the Pumas in Salta.

This is a very important week for us and I’m really excited about what we plan to do,” said director of rugby Rassie Erasmus following his team’s victorious return from Argentina.

“We’re determined to build on the momentum we have produced over the past few weekends and we are really looking forward to ticking a few more boxes before we leave for Japan.

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“This is the last 80 minutes we will have before reaching Japan and then we have only one match there before playing New Zealand, so this match is very important to the campaign.

“We don’t know what team Argentina will pick but you can be sure they will be going all out to end their pre-Rugby World Cup campaign with a morale-boosting win.

“This is the last chance we’ll have to show the South African public what we can do and after our last game at home against Australia we’re looking for a repeat,” continued Erasmus.

“We’ve felt the country behind us in the past few weeks and we’d like to see them behind us in the stands.”

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WATCH: Part two of Operation Jaypan, the two-part RugbyPass documentary on what the fans can expect to experience in Japan at the World Cup

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fl 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

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