{"id":220372,"date":"2019-10-11T10:02:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T08:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/220372\/pienaar-standby-worst-case-scenario\/"},"modified":"2019-10-11T10:02:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T08:02:50","slug":"pienaar-standby-worst-case-scenario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/sports-news\/2019\/10\/11\/pienaar-standby-worst-case-scenario\/","title":{"rendered":"Pienaar on standby for worst-case scenario"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rassie Erasmus has revealed that Ruan Pienaar will join the Springbok squad if there is a serious injury at scrumhalf in the coming weeks.\u00a0<span id=\"more-72899\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Boks enjoyed a two-day break following their 66-7 win against Canada on Tuesday. When the squad reconvened for training at the Kobelco Steelers Rugby Club this Friday morning, scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies (hamstring) and wing Cheslin Kolbe (ankle) spent much of the session on the sideline.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>Later, Erasmus confirmed that both players should recover from their respective niggles to feature in the World Cup quarter-final in Tokyo next Sunday, 20 October 2019. Loose forward Francois Louw (swollen knee) is another who should be available to train with the team from next week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cheslin picked up an ankle injury in the game against Italy and wasn\u2019t available for the game against Canada,&#8221; the Bok coach explained. \u2018We are hopeful that he will be training fully again on Monday.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>\u2018There\u2019s a very good chance \u2013 I\u2019d say 80 to 90% \u2013 that he will be available [for the quarter-final].<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Herschel picked up a hamstring injury against Canada and still managed to finish the game,&#8221; Erasmus said of the Boks\u2019 second-choice No 9.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At this stage it\u2019s just precautionary, because we\u2019re a little bit nervous about the fact that we only have three scrumhalves in the squad. We\u2019d rather give him more time to recover now and then get him back into the mix on Monday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Springboks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Springboks<\/a> practice their passing at the Kobelco Steelers Rugby Club on Friday <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xJCgIIP59R\">pic.twitter.com\/xJCgIIP59R<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SARugbymag\/status\/1182524980178964480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Erasmus was asked who he would consider as a replacement if Jantjies was forced to return home. He pointed out that Kolbe can cover scrumhalf at a push, before revealing his contingency plan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Herschel won\u2019t go home. It\u2019s not even a grade one hamstring injury. Cheslin would have been a nice option as a back-up, though.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019ve got some good scrumhalves in South Africa. Ruan Pienaar is currently playing very well for the Cheetahs back home,&#8221; Erasmus said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The difficult thing for the other scrumhalves who were in the mix this year and last year is that there is no Currie Cup rugby on the go at present. A guy like Ruan is playing regularly in the Pro14 and a few of the other South Africans are playing abroad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s why it was so easy to bring Damian Willemse in for Jesse Kriel [when the latter was ruled out with injury], as Damian was already playing for Saracens. Thomas du Toit was playing in France when we called him up to replace Trevor Nyakane.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re very far away from the fourth-choice scrumhalf scenario, though. The three boys we have here are good to go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pienaar was part of the Bok side that won the World Cup in 2007, and also featured at the 2011 and 2015 global tournaments.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='a7c02b2977bfa6bce18f0e07ca2fe930'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar to join the Springbok squad  should there be any serious injuries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8284,"featured_media":220373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"JON CARDINELLI ","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8428,3],"tags":[1122,7566,1767],"class_list":["post-220372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby-world-cup","category-sports-news","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-springboks"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"Sport","SubCategory":"Rugby World Cup"},"tag_labels":["rugby","Rugby World Cup","springboks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}