September 1, 2011. Peter de Villiers’s rugby Springboks will get a rousing send off from the South African rugby public who will gather in Sandton today to salute their rugby heroes.
Fans are invited to Sandton, where the team will make an on-stage appearance at Nelson Mandela Square, before walking to the Gautrain station, where they will travel with a group of lucky supporters to OR Tambo Airport. A media frenzy is expected as reporters, cameramen and TV crews all try to get close to the action to get that special moment or picture. Some experts have predicted that up to 200 000 people will turn out to bid farewell to the champion Springboks, who are bidding to become the first team ever to win the Rugby World Cup three times.
More rugby World Cup news follows in these short snippets.
Quade Cooper returns to New Zealand as public enemy no 1: Sydney Morning Herald
The Maori boy who grew up playing rugby and basketball on the streets, courts and backyards of small timber town Tokoroa, is returning home as an arch-villain with the power to continue New Zealand’s World Cup pain.
Quade Cooper will not only play that role as the audacious Wallabies playmaker who has the magical skills to bewilder opponents, excite crowds and harness his team.
He is also seen as a niggling scoundrel across the Tasman where he is in equal parts admired and despised after successfully getting under All Blacks’ skins.
The adopted Queenslander enters his first World Cup with a reputation in some quarters as a cheap-shot artist due to a long-running battle with All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw.
A knee to McCaw’s head in the Tri Nations decider was deemed accidental by the SANZAR judiciary which cleared him to start the tournament against Italy.
But the All Blacks and their fans appeared to feel differently, viewing it as the second time Cooper has treated their favourite son with contempt in 10 months following his “celebratory” in-goal head-shove in Hong Kong.
Aussie hopes all depend on Genia, says Farr Jones: Bloomberg
Australia’s chances of winning a record third Rugby World Cup hinge on scrum-half Will Genia, according to the first Wallabies captain to lift the trophy.
Genia’s vision and game-breaking ability, which he demonstrated in Australia’s 25-20 Tri-Nations win over New Zealand, put him alongside All Blacks fly-half Dan Carter as the key performers at the 20-nation tournament starting next week, former Wallabies skipper Nick Farr-Jones said.
“I’d say leading into the World Cup along with Dan Carter he is the most valuable player that any team has,” Farr-Jones said in Sydney today. “If I woke and found out that Genia had a tournament-ending injury then I’d almost give up on the Wallabies hopes. He’s that good.”
The ultimate guide to the Rugby World Cup 2011: Fox News
The return of the Incredible Schalk: Independent Online
Ard Matthews aside, perhaps the most awkward moment of the Springbok World Cup team announcement last Tuesday was when Regan Hoskins, the president of the South African Rugby Union, attempted to place a traditional cap on Schalk Burger’s head to mark his selection.
It was like trying to put a tea cosy on the shell of a giant turtle. It just wasn’t meant to be, and if Matthews is still looking for some succour after beating himself on the back with a birch twig all week, then he might find it in the fact that the hat he stole off a drunk Bergie to wear live on television did not look as daft as Burger with that cap on his pip.
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