{"id":3096,"date":"2015-09-24T21:34:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T14:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/?p=3096"},"modified":"2015-09-24T21:34:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T14:34:45","slug":"duane-vermeulen-ready-to-get-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/rugby\/duane-vermeulen-ready-to-get-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Duane Vermeulen ready to get going"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African Rugby Player of the Year for 2014, Duane Vermeulen, can\u2019t wait to get stuck in when the Springboks face Samoa in a crucial Rugby World Cup Pool B match in Birmingham on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Vermeulen had surgery to his neck in July and worked incredibly hard to get back to full fitness. He has been included at No 8 to face the Samoan challenge this weekend and is keen to get back on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing journey from when I injured my neck in June until now,\u201d said Vermeulen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal was always to make it to the Rugby World Cup and the doctors told me that I could make it if I worked hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment has now arrived and I can\u2019t wait to play on Saturday. It\u2019s been wonderful to be back training again with my team-mates, and not run on my own next to the field, but now the next step is to get back into the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put a lot of very hard work in over the last three months, and our medical staff deserves a lot of credit for helping me with my rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been tough but I can\u2019t wait to get out on the pitch, where I belong. All I want to do is make the guys around me proud, play to the best of my ability and contribute to a team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer lauded Vermeulen for his attitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone had the mental attitude and the desire to play for South Africa that Duane has, we probably wouldn\u2019t lose any games,\u201d said the Springbok coach<\/p>\n

Kick-off on Saturday afternoon is at 17:45 (SA time).<\/p>\n

Teams:<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n

15 Willie le Roux, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jean de Villiers (captain), 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Schalk Burger, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Beast Mtawarira<\/p>\n

Substitutes: 16 Schalk Brits, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Frans Malherbe, 19 Lood de Jager, 20 Siya Kolisi, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Jesse Kriel<\/p>\n

Samoa<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Sakaria Taulafo, 2 Motu Matu’u, 3 Anthony Perenise, 4 Teofilo Paulo, 5 Iosefa Tekori, 6 TJ Ioane, 7 Jack Lam, 8 Ofisa Treviranus (captain), 9 Kahn Fotuali’i, 10 Mike Stanley, 11 Alesana Tuilagi, 12 Rey Lee-Lo, 13 Paul Perez, 14 Ken Pisi 15 Tim Nanai-Williams<\/p>\n

Substitutes: 16 Ole Avei, 17 Viliamu Afatia, 18 Census Johnston, 19 Faifili Levave, 20 Vavae Tuilagi, 21 Vavao Afemai, 22 Tusi Pisi, 23 George Pisi<\/p>\n

Source: Sport24<\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa Today Sport \u2013 Rugby<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African Rugby Player of the Year for 2014, Duane Vermeulen, can\u2019t wait to get stuck in when the Springboks face Samoa in a crucial Rugby World Cup Pool B match in Birmingham on Saturday. Vermeulen had surgery to his neck in July and worked incredibly hard to get back to full fitness. He has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[569,1309,641,30,1454,1268,305,500,1425,1453,1443,1440,1439,1292,1445,1452,114,120,1449,1450,80,188,642,1451,643,1444],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-birmingham","tag-duane-vermeulen","tag-heyneke-meyer","tag-news","tag-pool-b","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-news","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-rugby-world-cup-2015","tag-rugby-world-cup-pool-b","tag-rwc-2015","tag-s-a-today","tag-sa-today","tag-samoa","tag-samoa-rugby","tag-samoan-challenge","tag-south-africa-today","tag-south-africa-today-sport","tag-south-african-rugby-player-of-the-year","tag-south-african-rugby-player-of-the-year-2014","tag-sport","tag-sport-news","tag-springboks","tag-springboks-face-samoa","tag-springboks-rugby","tag-springboks-vs-samoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}