News

Habana `will start`

Wednesday 19th November 2008

Form is temporary, class in permanent: Bryan Habana

The Springbok camp may have delayed the announcement of their starting XV to face England until Thursday, but the inclusions of Bryan Habana and John Smit at hooker have been confirmed.

South Africa's coach team will continue to place their faith in the out-of-form Habana at Twickenham, despite the IRB World Player of the Year's catastrophic dip in form.

Any question marks surrounding Habana's selection were erased when assistant coach Dick Muir confirmed at a press conference in London that the star wing "will start."

Once South Africa's most dangerous attacking weapon, Habana had a nightmare game against Scotland at Murrayfield last weekend, dropping a number of easy passes before taking the knock and being replaced by Jaque Fourie.

Head Coach Peter de Villiers has said that Habana's confidence crisis needs to be managed, which is not an uncommon approach, but all of South Africa will be hoping he improves at the cauldron that is Twickenham.

Habana's inclusion in the starting line-up thus leaves open the question of Fourie's participation. The World Cup winner has looked as sharp as ever whenever he has come on - best illustrated by the manner in which he clinically scored South Africa's only try in Scotland.

If he is to be given a starting berth, it would be in his preferred position of outside centre, the place of Adrian Jacobs, who has performed admirably alongside Jean de Villiers all season. The selection team are in for a difficult decision.

The team announcement has been delayed to allow injured scrum-half Fourie du Preez a maximum amount of time to recover before a call is made on his fitness. Du Preez's kicking game was sorely missed last Saturday and the decision to push back the announcement by a day is indicative of how important the Bulls scrum-half is to the Boks' cause.

Media spokesman Anthony McKaiser informed the media that Du Preez ran on the tartan track adjacent to the ground where the Boks trained on Tuesday, but he did not take part in the session with his teammates.

The final selection conundrum is who will start at tighthead. Brian Mujati is also on the current 'recovering from injury list' and Jannie du Plessis had been flown in to join the camp. Mujati struggled in the scrums against Scotland and whether he is fit or not might be irrelevant as Du Plessis's experience may come in handy against the much-vaunted English pack.

"Both Du Preez and Brian Mujati are being assessed. The injury situation has introduced a bit of uncertainty and we thought we would delay the announcement until we were absolutely sure that all the players will be ready," said Muir.

Smit will captain the side from hooker.

"It was our plan to convert John into a tighthead and he is a man who loves a challenge. But right now circumstances preclude him from playing in that position," said Muir.