Young superstar and springbok Eben Etzebeth puts fellow springbok Bismark Du Plessis on his backside after running over the top of him in the semi final of the super rugby competition.

Etzebeth is showing signs of becoming one of the greatest locks of all time.

Watch Etzebeth in action in the video below:

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New Zealand’s World Cup winning captain Richie McCaw is not expected to be available for the Crusader’s Super Rugby campaign until April. Although the player is running again since he underwent foot surgery, he is not yet fit enough to join his team mates in the campaign.

During last year’s World Cup, McCaw was suffering from immense pain from a screw that was inserted into his foot for the Super Rugby competition that was causing him a lot of aggravation.

As a result, the flank had the screw removed in this latest surgical procedure and told reporters in Auckland on Tuesday at the launch of the Super Rugby competition that he doubted he would be back in action any time before April.

McCaw said “The foot is really good. I’ve just started back running. I’ll progress over the next few weeks to hopefully get back out on the field soon, but hopefully it’s all behind me.” he also insisted that he doesn’t want to put to tight a time frame on his recovery and expected return.

The Crusaders who will be coming to South Africa for two matches against the Lions in Johannesburg on March 31,  the Bulls in Pretoria on April 7 and the Stormers on April 14 will also be without flyhalf Dan Carter who suffered from a groin injury.

Source: Super Sport

Vodacom Bulls lock Fudge Mabeta will be missing the 2012 Super Rugby campaign due to an injury sustained from a car accident.

Team doctor, Org Strauss commented on Wednesday that Mabeta will be out of action for at least six months as he is scheduled for an operation and recovery time for a ruptured knee ligament. During the medical check-ups when the Bulls re-assembled in Pretoria after the holiday season break, Mabeta was the obvious casualty. Other players are also at various places of recovery and will join the team as soon as Strauss approves of their fitness level.

Juandré Kruger (10 days), Bjorn Basson (14 days), Gerrit-Jan van Velze and Wesley Dunlop (7 days) will join sooner rather than later, while Dewald Potgieter, Francois Venter, Warwick Tecklenburg and Wynand Olivier are among those who will be returning to full training next month.

Commenting on the gathering of the Bulls in the new year for the Super Rugby campaign, captain Pierre Spies commented that “We have big plans and big dreams for 2012. The Bulls have established a proud record in Super Rugby in recent seasons and that acts as a great motivating factor. Everybody is keen to go.”

The Bulls begin their Super Rugby campaign in a match against the Sharks in Pretoria on 24th February.

Source: Supersport

110-cap Springbok, Victor Matfield is on the campaign trail and he’s just full to the brim with pearls of wisdom. First Big Vic spoke about the absolute faith he had in our local coaches and that ANY international intervention on this front would be a waste of time. Then the bearded bookseller came out firing against the “robots” in SA Rugby – those players who follow blindly and never ask or understand WHY!

In my honest opinion, what the ex-Bulls player is saying is layered with merit and I’m sure quite a few people would agree with this. What boggles the mind is how neatly he, the Bulls brains trust of the last decade and (for that matter) the whole Springbok squad danced around these types of issues when he was still plying his trade on grass as opposed to behind a table in the foyer of Exclusive Books. The issue of “robot-like” behavior is particularly close to Matfield’s heart as it has been a trademark of Bulls rugby from the days of Naas Botha. The ex-Springbok vice-captain cleverly disguises his old franchise’s ask-no-questions-hear-no-lies tactics as carefully thought-up structures that in no way resemble a programmed android. Furthermore, Peter de Villiers jumped onto this ideology as well and blindly instructed his troops to do whatever it is he felt was the trend at the time. I’m sure Matfield, Smit, Burger and du Preez will argue that they were consulted before the three Stooges (PDivvy, Muir and Gold) charged-off into a course set for disaster and stupidity, but I’m pretty sure they followed without asking – ala Robocop himself.

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I’ve always had the best laughs at people’s (mostly females) ideology about the male ego and it’s tendency to shatter at any moment. This dogma usually goes hand in hand with some form of reverse psychology, where the bird hopes that the net result would be shaming you (the hunter) into doing something you don’t feel like. This train of thought has to rank among the most lazy attempts at inflicting verbal pain/shame on a seemingly unsuspecting dude. Most males (metro or otherwise) have come to expect this onslaught from the ladies and have a couple of red, hot missiles waiting to be deployed as a way of retort. These come-backs are far less subtle and therefore far more effective. The way that they are also delivered very matter-of-factly (while resting on the couch, with a frosty, watching Super Rugby) adds dramatically to the impact of the punch.

A classic scenario would be if the queen of the manor has been nagging you for weeks to weed the garden path before an intended dinner party. You have had numerous chances to comply in the weeks leading up to the suarè, but has neglected your spouse’s pleas. Now on the actual day of the shindig, you’ve allocated just enough time to watch the game, shower, get dressed and play “host with most” to her friends from book club with their socially awkward husbands, with whom you have less than nothing in common. Your significant other has just had her hair done and the result is less than she expected, far less. (more…)

What an emphatic win for the in-form Super Rugby side from Australia, The Reds. What made this victory so much more deserving is that Ewan McKenzie, the coach and head of the Queensland-based franchise’s brain trust had a definite plan to it all. Granted, this sounds a bit strange, seeing as every one of the coaches in the competition had to have a structured plan in place. That may very well be the case, but were those plans based on correcting the errors of seasons gone by? I don’t think so!

In New Zealand, any early front runners are always competing with The Crusaders as the Canterbury outfit tend to start peaking later and later in recent years. They have the “stuff” champions are made of, so they always come back strong, as they showed again this year. They can never be written off and every year the media (in S.A. anyway) make big news of their slow starts, just to change opinion completely mid-way through the season. The other franchises in New Zealand all seem to have what it takes to win competitions on given days, but lose their way too frequently on many other outings.

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The Queensland Reds have won the 2011 Super Rugby tournament. A valiant Crusaders team seemed to just not have enough gas in the tank after a grueling season where they did more than a 100 000 miles of travelling. They lost 18 – 15 to the team from Australia in the Super Rugby final in Brisbane on Saturday.

Will Genia scored the last of two Reds’ tries in the 69th minute and that seemed to be enough. The other try was scored by Digby Ioane.

For the Crusaders Daniel Carter scored a try, a conversion and two penalties.

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