South Africa's national selectors have named a predictable and experienced squad of 30 players to feature at this year's World Cup tournament.
National coach Jake White named 14 backs and 16 forwards with the squad being a good blend of youth and experience.
Loose forward Bob Skinstad, who'd given up the game in South Africa in 2003 and only returned to action for the Coastal Sharks in this season's Super 14 championship, is the big winner in the squad.
Skinstad spent the last four years in England where he played a minor role with the Richmond club. He was lured back to the country of his birth by White during last season's 'Bok tour of Ireland and England.
The other player who snuck into the squad at the last minute was flanker Wikus van Heerden, a star performer in the weakened 'Bok side during the recent away leg of the Tri-Nations.
White also included injured flyhalf Andre Pretorius in his squad. Pretorius has played no rugby since the latter stages of the Super 14 competition.
Somewhat surprisingly the selectors opted for only two hookers, captain John Smit and Gary Botha, while there are three scrumhalves in Fourie du Preez, Ruan Pienaar and Ricky Januarie.
Also selected in the France-bound team is veteran loosehead prop Os du Randt as well as winger Ashwin Willemse, who only returned to rugby in the latter stages of the Super 14 competition, which ended in May, after sitting on the sidelines for two years nursing knee, ankle and hamstring injuries.
SQUAD:
Backs: Percy Montgomery, Francois Steyn, JP Pietersen, Bryan Habana, Ashwin Willemse, Akona Ndungane, Jaque Fourie, Jean de Villiers, Wynand Olivier, Butch James, Andre Pretorius, Fourie du Preez, Ruan Pienaar, Ricky Januarie.
Forwards: Pierre Spies, Bob Skinstad, Juan Smith, Schalk Burger, Wikus van Heerden, Danie Rossouw, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Johann Muller, Albert van den Berg, BJ Botha, CJ van der Linde, Os du Randt, Gurthro Steenkamp, John Smit (captain), Gary Botha.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Switzerland’s Riola Xhemaili on Thursday scored a last-gasp goal to salvage a dramatic 1-1 draw with Finland that sent the joyous hosts through to the quarter-finals at Euro 2025, and heartbroken Finland home. Switzerland, who needed only a draw to advance based on goal-difference, finished second in Group A behind Norway to go through to the knockout round for the first time and are to face the winners of Group B, which would be world champions Spain as things stand. “I think we set ourselves a goal on the pitch, to write history, to go into the knockout stages, which we’ve never