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No rest for captain Vic

By Online Editors
Monday 30 Jun 2014
Having seen off the Welsh and Scots, Victor Matfield is being thrust straight back into Super Rugby as he takes over the captaincy from an injured Flip van der Merwe.

 

The interim Springbok captain is set to sit alongside coach Frans Ludeke at a press conference on Thursday as the Bulls captain before they take on the Stormers in Cape Town at the weekend.

 

Matfield has had a busy work schedule since coming out of retirement.

 

Plenty of promises were made to the most-capped Springbok about rest and player-management, but these seemed to have fallen by the wayside.

 

At first, Matfield's role was to be a player/coach, mentoring young locks and chipping in when needed for the Pretoria-based team. 

 

However, when he made his comeback against the Lions in Round three, he became a fairly permanent fixture for Ludeke's team.

 

On the Bulls' Australasian tour they spun a renewed story of Matfield's management stating that he would go over as a coach and only play if an injury necessitated.

 

In the first match against the Hurricanes, Matfield sat in the coaches box, but injuries to Dewald Potgieter and Deon Stegmann quickly saw him back on the field against the Highlanders the next weekend.

 

Another injury, this time to regular Springbok captain Jean de Villiers, opened up a pathway for Matfield to take his spot as leader of the national team – and with that, saw him as a regular starter.

 

With the World Cup approaching, Matfield is still a valuable commodity for South Africa, but a veteran of this magnitude surely needs to be better managed?

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