South Africa

Wian wary of Castrogiovanni

Friday, November 20

Loosehead prop Wian du Preez knows he has a major task ahead of him in his Springbok debut as he goes head-to-head with Italy powerhouse Martin Castrogiovanni in Udine on Saturday.

Castrogiovanni introduced himself to the South African audience in devastating fashion in the opening match of the Boks’ end-of-year tour when he and the rest of the Leicester Tigers pack demolished the so-called dirt trackers at scrum time on their way to a famous 22-17 upset.

The entire front row who did duty that night, Gurthrö Steenkamp, Chiliboy Ralepelle and Jannie du Plessis, sustained tour ending injuries at the hands of the Italian juggernaut who went on to annihilate the All Black front row in last weekend’s 6-20 defeat.

With injuries continuing to mount in the Bok camp and Tendai Mtawarira struggling with form, possibly due to the controversy surrounding the Zimbabwean-born front ranker’s eligibility to represent South Africa, Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has entrusted 27-year-old Du Preez to turn the Boks’ fortunes around this weekend.

The Cheetahs ace knows he is in for the battle of his career but indicated that he has studied his opponent ahead of the Boks’ penultimate Test of the season.

"It's going to be a challenge, I saw what he did against the All Blacks and it's a real baptism of fire," Du Preez told SuperSport.

"Its up there, it's my first experience of international rugby so it's going to be a big test.

"The Italians are a big physical side of forwards, you can see they work well as a pack, they've worked well on scrums and drives. Castro's a big guy, it's going to be a physical test on Saturday.

"They're really improving and they're a passionate people. They're very supportive of us, it's going to be special representing South Africa."

De Villiers says despite the worrying number of injuries piling up and Ulster-based BJ Botha, who has been named on the replacements bench, late arrival in Italy on Thursday, he is far from pushing the panic button.

"We would have loved to have him (Botha) here with us from the beginning but what a lovely position to be in, we've been through a full compliment of front rows, we've lost six at the moment, and we can still fall back on somebody with that much test experience," said De Villiers, adding, "I think we're in a brilliant position, although not the one we wanted to be in."

De Villiers added that he believes the Azzurri will be a competitive outfit despite being on a 12-match losing streak.

"The biggest lesson that anyone can learn from that game (Italy against New Zealand) is the gentle way the Italians are growing in this game, they will pose a threat to rest of world come 2011 (the World Cup)," said the Bok boss.

"This Italian team is really good at doing certain things, especially come scrum time, mauling and lineout time."

De Villiers says the long season is taking its toll on his charges but assured his team will come out firing from the outset on Saturday.

"We're one or two seconds off the boil at the moment, so now we've got choices, are we going to start this game in first gear and keep it in first gear or are we going to use all the gears at our disposal," he said.

"If we had played last week's game against France in June we would have protected the ball much better because we would have been there earlier.

"We're not looking for excuses, we're here to win games and do our best."

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