Loss of Blaauw blow for WP

Blaauw only recently returned from injury and had just regained top form, with his strong scrumming and equally impressive ball carrying playing a big role in bringing back the hard edge to a Province pack that faltered in mid-season.

However the Namibian born front-row forward was forced to leave the field at half-time in the 48-32 win over Griquas at the weekend, and coach Allister Coetzee has confirmed the worst – Blaauw has been ruled out for six weeks with a hamstring tear, which effectively means that his season is over.

Why this is problematic for WP is because they are already missing the services of experienced first choice hooker Tiaan Liebenberg, who plays a big role in the scrumming when he is present. He is also out for the rest of the season with an ankle injury.

WP have two important fixtures coming up against strong scrumming teams in the form of the Bulls this coming weekend in Pretoria and then the Sharks in Cape Town a week later. They need to win both if they hope to overtake the Sharks for top spot on the final Currie Cup log and need to win one of them to be sure of at least home ground advantage in the semis.

Young JC Kritzinger is over his injury problems and didn’t do badly as Blaauw’s replacement in the second half against Grqiuas, but although he played loosehead during the Super 14 season, you do get the sense that he is a better tighthead. JD Moller, an experienced player who lost out to Blaauw’s return just a few weeks ago, could well be in line for a recall to the starting team for Loftus.

Good news for WP is that both of their injured halfback reserves, Conrad Hoffmann and Lionel Cronje, are over their injury problems and are in line to travel to Loftus after WP struggled in the last 20 minutes against Griquas when they had under-21 replacements on the field at scrumhalf and flyhalf.

Coetzee ascribed his team’s alarming late match fall away against Griquas – they were out-scored 29-19 by Griquas in the second half and conceded five tries – to his decision to ring the changes going into the last quarter, which was when Griquas did most of their scoring.

“I had a choice that I had to make – should we press on with the first choice players and risk losing some of them to injury like we lost Wicus, or should I pull them off and give them a rest chance ahead of next week’s massive match against the Bulls,” said Coetzee.

“If I had kept the team as it was, we might have won by something like 65-20 or maybe have hit the 70 mark, but what would that have proved? We had already banked the bonus point. The loss of Wicus was a big blow, but we needed to box clever with the upcoming matches in mind. I took Jean de Villiers off, I took Willem de Waal off, I took Dewaldt Duvenage off.

“All those players were experienced guys who had been doing well, but I thought it was necessary to rest them. I also pulled Anton van Zyl off and Duane Vermeulen off. Suddenly we were left with a very young team, and though the young players did very well, there was a shortage of experience to combat Griquas when they upped the tempo and piled on the pressure late in the game.

“We had under-21 players playing in the key decision making positions of scrumhalf and flyhalf, and we brought Paul Bosch on at centre. It was a big test for the youngsters and what was very encouraging for me was that with the new combinations we were still able to come back and score the last try of the match.”

Asked if he was concerned that WP had fallen away so badly with what was essentially the next line of players on the field, Coetzee pointed to the players who are about to return.

“I am not worried about the young players, it is just important that they gain experience, which does not come with just being on the training ground at the High Performance Centre. They will learn from this experience and they will be better for it next time.

“I do not look at the players who are next in line if we have injuries, I prefer to look at what we are getting back in a couple of weeks. We are getting four top Springboks back for the match against the Sharks.”

Indeed, and accommodating Bryan Habana, Jaques Fourie and Ricky Januarie in a backline that sizzled against Griquas is probably going to be Coetzee’s biggest dilemma over the coming weeks. Although they will only be available for the Sharks game, Coetzee intends reintroducing Habana, Fourie, Januarie and Schalk Burger back into his systems at training on Monday.