Sunday Times E-Edition

No 8 Wiese likely to start ahead of Roos against Wales

Mark Keohane is the founder of Keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter @mark_keohane

Stormers No 8 Evan Roos was sensational in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship. But don’t expect him to start in next

Saturday’s Springboks season-opening Test against Wales in Pretoria.

And there is a good reason. His name is Jasper Wiese.

Roos earlier this week was named the URC Player of the Season. He was also named the Next Generation Player of the Season, the Fans Player of the Season and the Players’ Player of the Season.

Roos played in 18 of the Stormers’ 21 matches and averaged 79 minutes a game. His impact and consistent improvement ensured the national coaching leadership couldn’t ignore his claims to a national call-up.

Roos’s Stormers beat the Bulls in last Saturday’s final to be crowned champions, but while Roos was making merry in Cape Town, another South African No 8 was being as influential in winning Leicester the English Premiership title.

Wiese, who played in eight Tests for the Springboks in 2021, was named the Player of the Final and one of Leicester’s stand-out players in a season that saw him start 16 of 19 Premiership matches and five of six Champions Cup matches.

He averaged 67 minutes a game.

Wiese was colossal in Leicester’s injury time Premiership final win against Saracens. He scored the decisive try and his strong run in injury time was the momentum-builder that set up Freddie Burns’s match-winning drop goal.

Wiese’s abrasive style won over more Leicester and Springboks fans in 2021 than it did match officials and the one disconcerting aspect of his game was his recklessness in the tackle and an inconsistent tackle technique.

His ball-carrying was powerful, he beat defenders, made line-breaks and was comfortably one of the best No 8s in Europe, but the penalties, yellow cards, red cards and suspensions were asking serious questions of whether he had the discipline for Test rugby.

Wiese answered his critics in the most emphatic manner over the past six months and credited his Leicester coaches for their frank assessment of his style of play. He had the potential to be an asset, they said, but he was turning into a liability.

He had to change his mindset, change his approach and add discipline and thought to every collision.

The result was that Wiese, who received five yellow cards, two red cards and a twomatch suspension in 2021, did not get a yellow card in Leicester’s final 17 matches of the season.

His penalty count also reduced dramatically. In the 2020/21 season he conceded 23 penalties for Leicester. In the 2021/22 season this was reduced to just two penalties.

The transformation has been remarkable and with veteran Duane Vermeulen absent from the Welsh series, it will be Wiese who the Bok coaching staff turn to as the starting No 8 option, with the explosive Roos hopefully introduced from the bench from the outset of the three-Test series.

SA, more than any rugby-playing nation, is blessed with loose-forwards that as a collective have no equal in the game.

You only have to look at who didn’t make the Springboks squad to know the quality of loose-forward that was selected.

There are so many options, among SAbased players and those based overseas. It is a very healthy situation.

Vermeulen is recovering from surgery but the talk among the national coaching staff is that he, at best, has five Tests left in him before the 2023 World Cup final in

Paris, France.

The inspirational Vermeulen will be managed very carefully in 2022, which means the playing opportunities will be there for Wiese and Roos to combine for the most potent of match-day No 8 tag teams.

Sport | Cricket / Rugby

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2022-06-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-06-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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