Boks ponder Smit’s role against Ireland

SOUTH AFRICA captain John Smit may return to the middle of the front row for his side’s visit to Dublin to take on Ireland next weekend.

Boks coach Peter de Villiers has attempted to convert the Sharks man into a world-class tighthead prop in order to extend his career to include the 2011 World Cup, but the conversion hasn’t been without its problems.

Smit moved to hooker for the final quarter of the Boks’ 32-10 win over Italy in Udine, with BJ Botha taking his place at tighthead, and the move significantly steadied a Bok scrum that had been given a tough afternoon by the Italian forward unit.

De Villiers admitted when the Boks tackle Ireland in the final match of their year-end tour in Dublin on Saturday, Smit may start at number two. “It’s a nice problem, knowing that we can change things around,” he said.

“Maybe next week I’ll use John [Smit) and Bismarck (du Plessis) as hookers against Ireland.”

That isn’t the only poser de Villiers has when he ponders his front-row selection to face the Irish. Not only has Du Plessis recovered from his injury, but so has prop CJ van der Linde, while Smit and BJ Botha put down strong markers for starting places.

“I will have to make some important decisions in this regard,” he added.

The Italian Test serves another purpose for the Boks – the need to continue rebuilding their momentum after a poor start to the year-end tour.

The Boks lost their previous three matches, including two against English clubs Leicester and Saracens and a 20-13 defeat in Toulouse to France.

But after running in four tries to one in Udine they are feeling much happier ahead of next week’s test against the Grand Slam champions. “When you come into these games the result is secondary to what you want to achieve,” said De Villiers. “I think we achieved more than the result.”

Bryan Habana, Jacque Fourie, Fourie Du Preez and Wynand Olivier all touched down for the world champions. Morne Steyn kicked 10 points while substitute Ruan Pienaar added a late conversion to make it eight games without defeat against Italy.

Gonzalo Garcia scored Italy’s lone try, which Craig Gower converted and later added a penalty.