1
Jake White closing in on another former Springbok?
By Ian Cameron
Bulls head coach Jake White looks like he is closing in on adding another Springbok veteran to the blue ranks in Pretoria - according to reports in South Africa.
White now wants to reunite with the former Springboks hooker Bismarck du Plessis, who left French club Montpellier at the end of the last season, exiting his contract with a year early. Having arrived in 2015, the world champion hooker has played over 100 times in the Montpellier colours, establishing himself as one of the spearheads of a pack White coached before leaving in 2017.
The 37-year-old was linked with a move to the Cheetahs in 2020, but it now looks like his former head coach at MHR, the Cell C Sharks and in the South African national set-up wants him to make the switch to the revived Bulls franchise. White has already convinced the likes of Marcell Coetzee, Arno Botha, Gio Aplon, Ruan Combrinck, Jacques du Plessis and Johan Goosen to return to SA.
According to respected South African news outlet Rapport, talks between the renowned hooker and the Bulls are “progressing positively”.
And Du Plessis appears up for the challenge of at least one more year.
In an interview with Jon Cardinelli in SA Rugby Mag earlier this month, the notoriously physical hooker, who is back on South African soil suggested there may still be fuel left in tank in terms of his career.
“I’ve been blessed to go through my career with relatively few injuries and to play for so many great teams for a long period. My fitness regime and my diet have played a role in that,” he told the magazine. “I’ve been very strict with my body and when I’ve played I’ve tried to maintain a high physical standard. You can’t back down just because you’re a bit older. In a sense, I’m grateful I was pushed so hard in my early days at Free State and the Sharks. I have tried to keep pushing the limits over the course of my career.”
"I’m not sure what’s in the future for me as a player."
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
Go to comments