There has been a lot of talk of late about the future of John Smit in the Springbok side, much of the chat has been about his so called impending retirement. The fact that Smit was being phased out by being moved to tighthead and that Bismarck du Plessis was by far the Springboks and the coach's number one choice for number two, led many to believe that "Smitty" was being put to pasture.
Another conversation of late has been the shaky Bok scrum and that the poor referees were to blame for the dodgy scrums, but there was a moment where "Barney" proved that his best spot is at number two. The strong Italian scrum buckled under the pressure of the Boks front row with BJ Botha, Smit and "the Beast" firing on all cylinders.
The emotion shown by Boks after that scrum told the world that the scrum was never in trouble and that a simple switch back to number two for the former Pretoria High School Head boy gave the scrum its balance. I think people need to get off John Smit's case, he has been and will be the country's most successful Bok captain and forget about the retirement talk, he has to lead us to the world cup in 2011, where he will prove that he still has what it takes to lift the William Webb Ellis trophy for a second consecutive time.