Wales names team to face Boks in quarterfinals

Wales and South Africa have played out a tightly-contested world cup Quarter-final at Twickenham Stadium, with the Proteas running out as eventual 23-19 winners.

He said: “We are delighted to see justice has been done”.

Scotland are the biggest outsiders of the eight quarter-finalists, but they have proved prickly customers for the Wallabies in recent years.

“I said to Duane in Afrikaans that I will dummy to the right and he should go left”.

I’m not about to change my pre-tournament predictions – namely a final between Ireland and South Africa – although I have to concede that original prediction came very much from the heart.

“There were five of us in an ambulance after that game going to the hospital”.

South Africa recalled JP Pietersen after the wing missed the 64-0 rout of the United States with a knee injury.

“If we manage to get to the semi-finals this World Cup, it would be awesome, purely because in the last World Cup we didn’t beat a southern hemisphere team, and that is a target of mine – beating a southern hemisphere team when it matters”.

“I think if you get to this stage you have to back yourself, don’t you?” he said.

South Africa’s stunning loss to Japan was the story of the tournament’s pool stage, but the forceful manner in which the two-time champs have put their campaign back on the rails has flown under the radar.

I think they were already in shape.

Biggar, who looked far from happy, went off injured, and South Africa capitalised immediately, launching a blindside move from an attacking scrum and Du Preez touched down to take them into the semi-finals and send Wales out.

Springboks coach Meyer admits his side have had a harder route than they hoped for to the quarter-final after losing their opening game against Japan.

He’s a good player. Sometimes people take a long time to get to the top and sometimes it happens in a very quick manner.

But there was better news when a World Rugby disciplinary panel led by South African Justice Lex Mpati announced their appeal verdict on Saturday afternoon following a hearing in central London, reversing the original decision completely.

Is it a good match-up for him to go against another young centre in Jesse Kriel? When you can leave the likes of Sonny Bill Williams on the bench it shows the incredible talent and strength in depth that coach Steve Hansen has to choose from and an All Blacks victory looks a certainty. That’s what these guys bring, although they might not have the experience of someone like Schalk Burger or Sam Warburton.

“I will never forget the second Lions Test at Loftus Versfeld (Pretoria) in 2009 when there were five of us in the hospital afterwards”. The set piece is going to be huge. When the fresh guys came on we turned it around. They will be the first Tier Two nation to host a world cup so it’s ideal that they are on an upward curve. “We have got an excellent chance of winning and I am confident we can do so”.

Slowly but surely, everybody in Wales is starting to believe that because they talk about it constantly.

This time around, though, Wales emerged from unquestionably the toughest pool in World Cup history, qualifying alongside Australia as England and Fiji were both eliminated, and they have also overcome repeated injury setbacks involving key players.