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'Any South African player wants to test themselves in the northern hemisphere': Northampton unveil new battering ram signing Juarno Augustus
By Sam Smith
Northampton have announced the signing of up-and-coming South African No8 Juarno Augustus, the Stormers forward who featured in last October's Springbok Green versus Springbok Gold invitational match last October. The 23-year-old will arrive at Franklin’s Gardens in July having made his Currie Cup breakthrough with Western Province in 2017.
At 6ft 2ins and 116kgs, new club Saints describe him as a "physical No8 built for the Gallagher Premiership, the young battering ram boasting a dynamic and aggressive ball-carrying ability and showing a knack for scoring tries in heavy traffic throughout his promising career so far".
Speaking ahead of his move, Augustus said: “I'm really excited to have the opportunity to join a Northampton club full of pedigree. It's a club known across the world for its history of success in the Premiership and in Europe and their current squad is clearly filled with talent, so I can’t wait to get to Northampton and get started with the group.
“Any South African player wants to test themselves in the northern hemisphere and develop as a player – and I'm no different. I’ve also heard great things about Franklin’s Gardens and the Club’s dedicated supporters, so I hope I can contribute towards some success and silverware for them.”
Named player of the tournament at the 2017 World Rugby U20s Championship in Georgia, he scored in all five Junior Springboks matches and finished with a total of seven tries (the most by any player).
Northampton boss Chris Boyd added: “We are really excited to be bringing Juarno into our group, as his level of talent is clear to see. Juarno is already big and powerful, and we believe that if he can add the right combination of work rate, skill and game understanding to his CV, he has all the attributes he needs to thrive in European rugby.
“At just 23 years old, Juarno still has many years ahead of him to learn his craft and I’m looking forward to seeing his progress within our set-up here at Franklin’s Gardens.”
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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