Scotland's next Saffa import? 6'9, 123kg David Meihuizen 'formally approached'
Scotland could be about to acquire a new South African import in the shape of giant DHL Stormers' lock David Meihuizen. WP coach John Dobson revealed that Scottish scouts are offering the 23-year-old, Cape Town-born and Paarl schooled, second row forward a highly lucrative deal to come North.
Meihuizen will feature in a Province team that shows seven changes when they host the Pumas in a Currie Cup Round Three encounter at Newlands on Friday. Meihuizen is in for seasoned lock John Schickerling, who is being rested.
However, the decision also relates to the desperate desire to keep the Euro scouts at bay.
“He is a really exciting player that is in high demand overseas,” Dobson told a virtual media briefing, adding that Meihuizen qualifies for England and Scotland. If we don’t play him or give him opportunities, it is going to be harder to retain him."
Dobson said he has to be realistic about the management of his resources.
“We see him as a player with a big future. He is in high demand in Scotland [and] there have been some formal approaches via his agent.
“In Scotland, if you get a 2.08m, 123kg player, that is a big unit.”
“I can’t wait till next year, and David Meihuizen comes to me, saying: ‘I got 12 minutes or 30 minutes in the whole competition, it is not enough for my development. I am going.’
“I have to be cognizant of that and address it.”
There has been plenty of other rumours around WP players, in the wake of the financial dramas playing themselves out in Cape Town.
“There are a lot of rumours and a lot of smoke at the moment,” Dobson said, when asked by Rugby 365 about his players, adding: “[If there’s smoke] you must suspect there must be fire.
“No player has told me officially they are going.
“I know that Harlequins are after a couple of our forwards. There has been an article that [WP captain] Siya [Kolisi] may be in demand elsewhere in South Africa,” the coach said about the suggestion that Kolisi could be courted by the Sharks.
“There is a perpetual rumour about Damian Willemse going to the Bulls.
“There is a lot of smoke, but the window [for negotiation] with those players is not open for a couple of months yet.”
However, the Meihuizen situation is very is different. “He is not an established guy coming off a contract,” Dobson said, adding: “He is a young guy that has to make a call on his future and we really, really want to keep him in this union."
- Rugby 365
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Yeah me too. I think the Welsh have it in them to make it a contest in the first half. Give the boks' second stringers a headache. Disrupting lineouts is one area the welsh could cause problems. Bok lineouts have been subpar.
And then fronting up in the collisions and at the rucks. If the boks get the ascendancy there too early, it could be a hiding. Jaden hendrikse had a tough game against the Scots - who were very good at disrupting the boks flow. The welsh would have taken note of this i'm sure.
But the bok bench will finish the welsh off i'm afraid.
Go to commentsYes, certainly. As an AB fan happy to be included in that top 3 of "matches that are routinely decided by one score" now, we were well outside that for a few years.
They have not had enough games yet. You can't undo so many poor years just like that. Asking for miracles like SA losing is not the way to get back to number 1.
They might get there as those bad years filter out of the rankings but it's guarenteed to be great fun going back and forth with SA once that happens.
Admittedly Foster only really had one bad year (21/22 season), but that's more likely because COVID stopped a lot of tough games from being played, and effected the other countries they did play far more than themselves.
A real shame we both don't get to see it unfold first with our regions teams in SR!
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