NATIONAL NEWS - The call up of the Cheetahs’ Uzair Cassiem to replace the injured Roelof Smit for the remainder of the Springbok tour of the northern hemisphere is part of an improvisation plan on the part of coach Allister Coetzee.
Smit, the only specialist openside flank in the squad, was ruled out of the tour with what was described initially as a torn bicep but later a torn pectoral muscle. The 23-year-old Blue Bulls flank, who hailed originally from Queenstown, sustained the injury in training on Monday.
His withdrawal from the tour will be seen as a blow for the Boks in that although he didn’t cover himself in glory in the opening match against the Barbarians, he was favoured to be part of the starting mix against England at Twickenham on Saturday.
Cassiem is a highly skilful player and perhaps the highest compliment he could be paid is that he is more like a New Zealand forward than a South African one in terms of his core skill set. Both in Super Rugby and in the Currie Cup he was responsible for moments of sheer sublime handling brilliance that frequently led to tries.
He has played mostly as a blindside flank, but according to Coetzee, it has been his occasional appearances at No 8 that have marked him as a potential solution to the lack of a specialist openside flank now that Smit is heading home.
“He has played No 8 and the two positions are fairly similar,” said Coetzee when he first suggested the possibility of flying Cassiem back to England as the replacement for Smit. The Cheetahs loose-forward was part of the group that prepared for the clash with the Barbarians, although he didn’t feature in the match day squad.
However, Coetzee intends improvising rather than creating a like for like alternative to Smit’s ball scavenging prototype. There were times in the London press conference on Monday when he sounded a bit like his former boss in the 2007 Bok World Cup cycle, Jake White, who once famously said that the only fetchers he knew were his two sons, who fetched beers for him from the fridge.
