Matfield: Manie’s probably the best

Victor Matfield says Manie Libbok is the Springboks’ go-to flyhalf if they want to “open it up” against the All Blacks in Baltimore on Saturday. zeppelin.cool

Libbok was thrust into the third Test at FNB Stadium in the ninth minute when fullback Cheslin Kolbe suffered a broken jaw.

Starting flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu shifted to 15 after returning from an early stint in the sin bin, allowing Libbok to continue at 10 as the world champions claimed a 29-24 victory to take a 2-1 series lead into Saturday’s finale in the USA.

WATCH: How Cheslin broke his jaw

Speaking on the Rugby Rivals podcast, Matfield said Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who has started all three Tests of the series at flyhalf, is experiencing a more challenging period after an outstanding 2025 Test campaign.

“Sacha has the X factor, he’s going through that second-year syndrome when the first year everything just worked, whereas now he has to work for it.”

Feinberg-Mngomezulu was yellow-carded for a deliberate knock-on at FNB Stadium, but the former Bok lock was encouraged by his contribution at fullback in the second half.

“He really stepped up, even though he was at 15. Those kicks he had to make and his physicality on defence is unbelievable.”

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But if the Boks want to unleash their attack in Baltimore, Matfield believes Libbok offers something different.

“In Manie we’ve got a 10 that if you want to open it up, I think he’s probably the best,” he said.

“He loves to call for the ball, he loves to get width on attack and we scored both of our tries with him giving those long passes to the outside.”

OPINION: Greatest Rivalry can get even better

Despite that endorsement, Matfield still expects Feinberg-Mngomezulu to remain the Boks’ first-choice flyhalf.

“He just needs to work through this second-year syndrome,” he said. “That always happens because the expectation is so high of him to just go out there and do magic.

“I think he will need to learn how to build pressure and when the opportunity comes, you take it, because he’s got all the skills for that.”

The Springbok team for the fourth Test will be named at 8pm (SA time) on Monday.

EXPLAINED: Why Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry ends in USA

Photo: Floris van Schouwenburg/Gallo Images

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Siwelele FC have confirmed that they have relieved head coach Lehlohonolo Seema and assistant coach Willem Jackson of their first-team duties following a disappointing start to the 2026/27 season.

The duo’s sacking comes a day after Siwelele lost 3-2 to Kaizer Chiefs in a Betway Premiership match played at the Dobsonville Stadium on Sunday. It was Siwelele’s third defeat in five league games.

Siwelele announced the decision via a statement on Monday.

“Following a disappointing start to the 2026/27 season, Siwelele FC has relieved head coach Lehlohonolo Seema and assistant coach Willem Jackson of their first-team duties while the club conducts a review of the senior team’s performance and technical programme,” read the club’s statement.

The club further confirmed that Godfrey Mosoetsa will take charge of the first team as caretaker coach with immediate effect.

“This has been a challenging period for the club, and our supporters deserve better than what they have seen so far this season. Our belief in this team, in our players and in what we are building at Siwelele remains unchanged.

“This is a moment to stand together, to work harder and to embody the spirit that defines this club: courage, unity and fighting for one another. Our season is still young. We will face the challenge in front of us together, as one team and one family.”

Siwelele further stated that Siwelele further stated that they will make further announcement on the coaching approach for the remainder of the season once the review has been conducted.

The Springboks 2-1 home series triumph against the All Blacks has drawn a remarkably consistent verdict from New Zealand’s leading rugby voices: South Africa are the benchmark and their power game is unlike anything else in Test rugby.

And, when the pressure was greatest, the world champions imposed themselves on the All Blacks.

The Springboks have won the South African leg of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 2-1 and the message from New Zealand is not that the All Blacks were disgraced, exposed or hopeless.

It is that the Boks were better.

And, more significantly, that the Springboks remain the team every other nation is chasing.

The All Blacks won 33-16 at Ellis Park, but South Africa responded 33-26 in Cape Town and 29-24 at FNB Stadium to ensure New Zealand’s famed 1996 Incomparables remain the only All Blacks to have won a Test series in South Africa.

The reaction in New Zealand has focused heavily on what the All Blacks need to improve, but within that analysis has been an emphatic acknowledgement of the quality of Rassie Erasmus’s Springboks.

Stuff.co.nz’s Marc Hinton was unequivocal.

When it mattered, he wrote, the Springboks were “too big, too strong and too flaming good”.

Hinton described the Soweto victory as another “clinical, classical, pressure-packed performance” from the back-to-back world champions and said it demonstrated exactly why South Africa remain the side everyone else is chasing.

That was the theme across the Kiwi analysis.

This was not simply about the Boks having bigger forwards. It was about how efficiently South Africa turned their physical advantages into points.

Stuff’s Ross Karl broke down the sequence that has become so brutally effective.

The scrum creates the penalty. The penalty creates the lineout. The lineout creates the maul. And the maul creates the try.

The All Blacks know it is coming. They just haven’t been able to stop it.

Karl highlighted that nine of the Boks’ 12 scrum penalties in the three Tests have come on South Africa’s feed.

When the All Blacks put the ball into the scrum, they have increasingly looked to get it out quickly. When the Boks feed, they are prepared to keep the ball at No 8, feel New Zealand retreat and then turn the scrum into an attacking weapon.

South Africa won five scrum penalties in Soweto.

The most devastating expression of that forward superiority, however, came from Malcolm Marx’s try following a 25-metre maul.

Karl called it one of the defining moments of the Test because it was about much more than seven points.

It created a sense of helplessness.

Once South Africa got the game into the area in which they are strongest, New Zealand could not reliably get out.

That is a huge compliment to this Bok team.

Gregor Paul, writing for the New Zealand Herald, went even further in assessing South Africa’s power game.

Paul argued that every team in world rugby will struggle with it because the Boks are producing physical power “at a scale previously never seen”.

But his most telling assessment concerned the fundamental battle of styles that has made this series so compelling.

The Springboks have built their game around power and the All Blacks around athleticism. South Africa want to dominate the set piece and New Zealand want space. The Boks have heavier, square, immensely powerful forwards, while New Zealand favour lighter and more explosive athletes.

One wants to squeeze. The other wants to stretch.

Paul described it as rugby chess and, after 240 minutes in South Africa, said there could be no argument about which team had imposed its identity for longer.

The answer was definitively the Springboks.

That conclusion matters more than the 2-1 scoreline.

The All Blacks have played some spectacular rugby in the series. They have repeatedly found width against South Africa’s aggressive defensive system and in Soweto produced 12 line breaks and 11 offloads compared with the Boks’ six line breaks and one offload.

Yet the Boks won.

Why?

Because South Africa are comfortable being uncomfortable.

Liam Napier, also writing in the New Zealand Herald, noted that much had been made of the All Blacks’ fitness and their supposed advantage at altitude after they dominated the final 20 minutes of the opening two Tests by an aggregate 26-3.

In Soweto, that script was shredded.

The Boks dominated the second half.

Their defence swarmed, their forwards rumbled and the penalties started flowing. Instead of New Zealand running South Africa off their feet in the final quarter, it was the All Blacks who found themselves on the ropes.

The Springboks’ ability to defend when apparently beaten has also earned significant praise.

Karl wrote that South Africa deserved “enormous credit” for their scramble defence, repeatedly recovering from situations that would probably have produced tries against other teams.

That is important because New Zealand’s attack has been good.

The All Blacks are making breaks. They are finding space. They are moving the Bok defence around.

They simply have not converted enough of those opportunities because the Springboks refuse to die defensively.

And when momentum changes, South Africa punish teams with a brutality few can match.

Hinton identified the Bok midfield of Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende as outstanding in Soweto, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu combining control and creativity.

Kurt-Lee Arendse and replacement Manie Libbok were influential, but the foundation came from Malcolm Marx, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Ox Nche.

Hinton’s assessment was simple: the Bok pack won its battles and provided a brilliant platform.

The same respect came from former All Blacks Brad Weber, Angus Ta’avao and Mils Muliaina on Sky Sport’s The Breakdown.

Ta’avao, a 22-Test All Black prop, called South Africa’s scrum the best in the world and stressed that the Boks do not approach a scrum hoping for parity.

They attack it to dominate.

Former All Blacks scrumhalf Weber said New Zealand’s challenge was to keep the ball alive and attempt to run the Boks off their feet. Every handling mistake that gives South Africa another scrum simply invites the world champions back into their preferred form of combat.

And Muliaina made perhaps the most important observation of all.

South Africa do not mind pressure.

They absorb it.

The All Blacks have shown in these three Tests that the gap between the teams is not enormous. At Ellis Park they punished an inaccurate South Africa ruthlessly. In Cape Town they stayed alive until the finish. At FNB Stadium they created more line breaks and attacked with ambition.

But this series has also shown the difference between threatening the champions and displacing them.

The Boks have a scrum that can destroy you, a lineout that rarely gives the ball away, a maul capable of marching 25 metres, a defence that can recover when broken and a playing group conditioned by years of winning the biggest moments in the biggest Tests.

They also know exactly who they are.

The New Zealand media’s verdict after three Tests reflects that reality.

The All Blacks are improving.

The Springboks are still the standard.

HOW THE SOUTH AFRICAN MEDIA PREDICTED A THIRD TEST WIN FOR THE SPRINGBOKS

DAKAR- L’UFOA-A a officiellement disqualifié la Guinée-Bissau du tournoi qualificatif U17 (zone Ouest A) qui débute ce lundi 7 septembre 2026 au Sénégal, à la suite de tests d’imagerie par résonance magnétique (IRM) révélant des cas de fraude sur l’âge.

L’équipe de la Guinée-Bissau est exclue de la compétition.Impact sur la compétition : Logée initialement dans le groupe B, sa disqualification laisse le Mali, le Liberia et la Guinée s’affronter dans une poule réduite.Le tournoi se poursuit : Malgré ce rebondissement de dernière minute, la compétition démarre comme prévu ce 7 septembre 2026 au Sénégal, notamment avec le match d’ouverture opposant les Lionceaux du Sénégal à la Mauritanie au Stade Abdoulaye Wade.

Cette disqualification réorganise la poule B avec désormais trois équipes à savoir : la Guinée, le Liberia et le Mali. Précisons que pour se qualifier à la prochaine CAN U-17, la Guinée devra remorter ne tournoi ou être être finaliste. Tout un défi pour le staff technique qui veut ramener le Syli en coupe d’Afrique après avoir raté les dernières éditions.

Mohamed LAMINE TOURÉ

L’article Tournoi U17 à Dakar : la Guinée-Bissau disqualifiée après des tests IRM est apparu en premier sur Guineefoot.

Worcestershire have confirmed that Beyers Swanepoel has returned to South Africa earlier than planned to attend to matters relating to his domestic cricket commitments, with Usama Mir signed to replace him for the final three Rothesay County Championship matches of the season.

The departure comes against the backdrop of a turbulent year for Swanepoel, whose move to Worcestershire was thrown into doubt in March when he walked off the field during the Lions’ One-Day Cup final, with seven overs still remaining, to catch a flight to England without having secured the required No-Objection Certificate.

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The Lions terminated his contract as a result, and Cricket South Africa charged him with a Level 4 offence for bringing the game into disrepute, a case that remained unresolved even after he was eventually cleared to play for Worcestershire in April.

Despite the disruption, Swanepoel made a strong impact across formats this season, playing in eight Division Two matches and also featuring in the Vitality T20 Blast and Metro Bank One Day Cup. He scored an unbeaten 63 against Lancashire and took 31 Division Two wickets, including a season-best 5-65 against Gloucestershire.

Mir, who returns for a second spell of red-ball cricket at Worcestershire, will be available from Tuesday’s Division Two fixture against Northamptonshire through to the end of the season.

AFRICA PICKS: Cricket tips and predictions

Beyers Swanepoel has returned to South Africa to attend to matters relating to his domestic cricket commitments.

We’d like to thank Beyers for his efforts throughout his time as a Pear, in what has been a highly impressive campaign for the South African.

Find out who will… pic.twitter.com/qFs36pFCE3

— Worcestershire CCC (@WorcsCCC) September 7, 2026

Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

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