Jean de Villiers and Heyneke Meyer (Gallo Images)

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Port Elizabeth - Jean de Villiers has been appointed as Springbok captain for the remainder of the 2012 season, Bok coach Heyneke Meyer announced in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday. 

De Villiers was appointed the 54th Springbok captain before the international season started, but initially only for the Castle Incoming Tour against England. 

Meyer decided to hand the captaincy to the most experienced Springbok centre ever for the remaining nine Tests of the year. 

“Jean had established himself as a brilliant leader and ambassador for the Springboks and South African rugby in the last two weeks,” said Meyer. 

“He leads the team with distinction on and off the field and gained respect, not just from his team-mates and the management team, but also from the media, public, sponsors and other stake holders. 

“We have built up an awesome working relationship based on trust, integrity and loyalty, which is why I decided to make him the captain for the rest of the year.” 

De Villiers, who led the Boks to victories in the first two Tests against England, said he was very grateful for the trust shown in him. 

“The experience thus far has been unbelievable and humbling and I’ve really enjoyed the environment created by Heyneke Meyer,” said De Villiers. 

“It’s easy working with this team and the help that I’ve received from the other senior players has made my job so much easier. 

“I’m looking forward to working with them for the rest of the year and hopefully we can grow as a team and reach our goal of becoming number one in the world.” 

Cool - a job well done so far- why change if not broken...until the Hulk is fit anyway...

 good news will bring some consistency

Looking around I can think of no one better. Good luck to him and the boys!

Jean is fine for now, but he is not the answer for the future. By the time the next World Cup rolls by, he'll be way past it. I reckon we need him for this series, the 4 Nations Championship and then he must move on and make way for the future capain.  

When Jean can't fulfill his centre role it will be time to move on. Jean is two years younger than Brian O Driscoll, who is in exactly the same role of 13 and captain.  And O Driscoll is still good value for money. So is Jean.

Look, I like Jean, and rate him as a player, but he is no Brian O Driscoll. BoD is just in another class, and as a result, now in his "old" age he is only as good as your run of the mill international centre, which is still better than the next best Irishman. Anyway, that is another discussion on its own. I just don't want a John Smit type situation, where we have better players in a given position, that are being kept on the bench by a player who is past his best. I think they should be looking at young uber talents for the long term, Bizzie, Hougard, Goosen etc....and yes I know some of them are too young, but in my opinion, you want a player that is the out and out best in his position, so that there is no doubt that he won't keep a better player benched, just because he is captain. In other words, McCaw, O'Driscoll, Warburton (I think that is the name of the new young Welsh captain) etc, all Captains, but because they are special players, they would start for their respective teams, regardless of their captain status. That way you avoid the conflict of interest we had with Smit vs Bizzie. And Warburton, young as he is, is a very good captain, and Wales are looking better under him than they have for a long long time.

Wise move Meyer, Jean is still an outstanding centre, twice the player that ou dricoll is and twice the captain as well.

A worthy reward for this outstanding player. The next two years will be very interesting with a heap of players challenging for Bok honours.

Yo Beans, do you honestly expect Jean to still be good enough by the time the next World Cup kicks off? I think they should start planning for that now. Although, maybe they already have, because he is only going to be captain to the end of the year...still time after that to blood a new cappy. I guess we should just trust Meyers judgement, so far so good.