Bok No8 flattens World Cup rival's captain Jonah Lomu style on way to the line
By Rugby Onslaught

Bok No8 flattens World Cup rival’s captain Jonah Lomu style on way to the line

In six month’s time, South Africa will get their World Cup defence underway against Scotland in Marseille, with the result potentially having a huge say as to who will progress out of the pool.

With world number ones and Grand Slam winners Ireland also in what is probably the pool of death, a loss could likely spell the end of either side’s hopes of progressing.

So Springboks No8 Jasper Wiese thought it was best to just send some of the Scotland players a friendly reminder of what they will face in September- specifically Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie.

Leicester Tigers hosted Edinburgh in the Heineken Champions Cup round of 16 on Friday night, edging past them 16-6. Wiese’s try early in the second half proved to be decisive, and it sent quite a message to the Scotland camp as he bulldozed over each hopeless tackler on the way to the line, with Ritchie coming off worst.

The 27-year-old had only joined the action as a substitute in the second half, but such was his performance that he was actually named man of the match. It was not just his try and carrying though that was so impressive, he also made ten tackles and one turnover.

The next time he will face many of those players will be in the green of the Springboks, so it was not a bad message to send to his World Cup rivals.

Take a look at the try:

Leicester head coach Richard Wigglesworth said about Wiese: “He obviously provided that X-factor moment, he was exceptional, we’ve seen that from him before – maybe not the twinkle toes but certainly the power.

“He had a turnover [as well] and he also unfortunately got penalised a couple of times – one of them probably very harshly – but he came on and added, which is something that we’ve asked our bench to do.”

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