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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town - Duane Vermeulen has been one of the most luckless aspirant Springboks in the country over the past season or two.
Gallery: Boks get down to business
He has “bubbled under” national honours much of the time and, after being selected for a preliminary squad ahead of the Bok end-of-year-tour in 2010, the rugged Stormers No 8 then missed the cut for the venture.
But the weight of his showings for the best-performing local Vodacom Super Rugby franchise this season once again led to his inclusion in a broad training group named by national coach Peter de Villiers recently ... until his world came crashing down once more as the normally indestructible campaigner suffered knee ligament damage in the last ordinary-season fixture against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.
His World Cup prospects have thus taken a significant dive, as he has almost certainly missed out on the chance of any activity in the Tri-Nations, which is expected to provide a few useful selection pointers to De Villiers and company – especially in the slightly more “experimental” away leg -- ahead of the global get-together.
Vermeulen, who turned 25 on Sunday, and probably with rather muted celebrations, is expected to be fully fit again by mid-August, by which time the Boks are likelier to be more in tried-and-trusted mode as they complete their Tri-Nations programme against the All Blacks in Port Elizabeth on August 20.
So the door has slammed shut, it would seem, on the 115kg specimen’s RWC 2011 dream.
Or has it?
A personal view is that Vermeulen, if acceptably back in personal nick shortly after the Tri-Nations is done and dusted, may warrant being granted the same “privileges” afforded to Bok stalwart Juan Smith, who is also racing against time to make the World Cup cut.
The trusty No 7 flank appears to have only an outside chance of Tri-Nations duty, although that presumably is not going to snuff out his quest to aid the World Cup defence, and rightly so – he could yet be a key element of the Springbok arsenal when they play their first group game against Wales just over three weeks after their own Tri-Nations itinerary has ended.
Vermeulen, meanwhile, is so important to the Stormers’ cause with his hard-nosed approach and consistently massive work-rate that he tends to be overplayed by them, and it might be argued that his was an injury waiting to happen.
So in certain respects the current layoff may serve him well, allowing his body a general period of refreshment it almost certainly needs while he rehabilitates the damaged knee.
And if he recovers at a rate of knots, as I’d bet he will, Vermeulen should be considered a dark horse for the World Cup: just how vital a player he is, after all, was reflected as the Stormers came up so shy without him in the physical stakes when the Crusaders trampled them out of the Super Rugby semi-final at Newlands.
Especially with some new alarm around South African scrummaging of late, there are no guarantees of great “go-forward” by the Boks against top-notch foes at the World Cup, and if they do happen to find themselves on the back foot in crunch encounters, I know I’d want a Vermeulen-type customer at No 8 ahead of a Pierre Spies any day of the week.
Might the admittedly uncapped Duane Vermeulen be more of a national treasure than we even realise?
I say that with the World Cup very much in mind, even if his readiness remains shrouded in uncertainty as things stand ...
Cape Town - Duane Vermeulen has been one of the most luckless aspirant Springboks in the country over the past season or two.
Gallery: Boks get down to business
He has “bubbled under” national honours much of the time and, after being selected for a preliminary squad ahead of the Bok end-of-year-tour in 2010, the rugged Stormers No 8 then missed the cut for the venture.
But the weight of his showings for the best-performing local Vodacom Super Rugby franchise this season once again led to his inclusion in a broad training group named by national coach Peter de Villiers recently ... until his world came crashing down once more as the normally indestructible campaigner suffered knee ligament damage in the last ordinary-season fixture against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.
His World Cup prospects have thus taken a significant dive, as he has almost certainly missed out on the chance of any activity in the Tri-Nations, which is expected to provide a few useful selection pointers to De Villiers and company – especially in the slightly more “experimental” away leg -- ahead of the global get-together.
Vermeulen, who turned 25 on Sunday, and probably with rather muted celebrations, is expected to be fully fit again by mid-August, by which time the Boks are likelier to be more in tried-and-trusted mode as they complete their Tri-Nations programme against the All Blacks in Port Elizabeth on August 20.
So the door has slammed shut, it would seem, on the 115kg specimen’s RWC 2011 dream.
Or has it?
A personal view is that Vermeulen, if acceptably back in personal nick shortly after the Tri-Nations is done and dusted, may warrant being granted the same “privileges” afforded to Bok stalwart Juan Smith, who is also racing against time to make the World Cup cut.
The trusty No 7 flank appears to have only an outside chance of Tri-Nations duty, although that presumably is not going to snuff out his quest to aid the World Cup defence, and rightly so – he could yet be a key element of the Springbok arsenal when they play their first group game against Wales just over three weeks after their own Tri-Nations itinerary has ended.
Vermeulen, meanwhile, is so important to the Stormers’ cause with his hard-nosed approach and consistently massive work-rate that he tends to be overplayed by them, and it might be argued that his was an injury waiting to happen.
So in certain respects the current layoff may serve him well, allowing his body a general period of refreshment it almost certainly needs while he rehabilitates the damaged knee.
And if he recovers at a rate of knots, as I’d bet he will, Vermeulen should be considered a dark horse for the World Cup: just how vital a player he is, after all, was reflected as the Stormers came up so shy without him in the physical stakes when the Crusaders trampled them out of the Super Rugby semi-final at Newlands.
Especially with some new alarm around South African scrummaging of late, there are no guarantees of great “go-forward” by the Boks against top-notch foes at the World Cup, and if they do happen to find themselves on the back foot in crunch encounters, I know I’d want a Vermeulen-type customer at No 8 ahead of a Pierre Spies any day of the week.
Might the admittedly uncapped Duane Vermeulen be more of a national treasure than we even realise?
I say that with the World Cup very much in mind, even if his readiness remains shrouded in uncertainty as things stand ...
