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Honda Heat bag 4 players, including Bok and a Blue

Franco Mostert is joining the Honda Heat. (Getty)

Honda Heat have announced four big-name signings with South African trio Franco Mostert, Matthys Basson, Jean-Luc du Plessis and Blues full-back Matt Duffie all heading to Japan. The announcement comes just hours after the Kobelco Steelers confirmed the signatures of All Blacks Ben Smith and Aaron Cruden.

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World Cup winner Mostert, who joins from Gloucester, already has experience of playing in Japan under his belt having represented the Ricoh Black Rams between 2016 and 2018. The 39-cap Springbok has also played for the Lions and Blue Bulls.

Bason joins the Heat from the Bulls while du Plessis, a former South Africa Under-20 international, ends a four-year stay with the Stormers.

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“I was impressed by Honda Heat’s ambition to continue to grow,” said Mostert, 29.

“Now I’m really looking forward to joining the team. I have always enjoyed and had a great time in Japan, including winning the World Cup last year.

“I love Japanese culture and people. I look forward to this challenge.”

The news continues the influx of top-class talent to the Japanese Top League.

New Zealand fly-half Beauden Barrett recently signed a one-year deal with Suntory Sungoliath, while South Africa’s Malcolm Marx, England’s George Kruis and Wales’ Hadleigh Parkes are also confirmed to be moving to Japan.

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Nickers 52 minutes ago
The changes Scott Robertson must make to address All Blacks’ bench woes

Hopefully Robertson and co aren't applying this type of thinking to their selections, although some of their moves this year have suggested that might be the case.


The first half of Foster's tenure, when he was surrounded by coaches who were not up to the task, was disastrous due to this type of reactionary chopping and changing. No clear plan of the direction of travel or what needs to be built to get there. Just constant tinkering. A player gets dropped one week, on the bench the next, back to starting the next, dropped for the next week again. Add in injuries and other variations of this selection pattern, combined with vastly different game plans from one week to the next and it's no wonder the team isn't clicking on attack and are making incredibly basic errors on both sides of the ball.


When Schmidt and Ryan got involved selections became far more consistent and the game plan far simpler and the dividends were instant, and they accepted bad performances as part of building towards the world cup. They were able to distinguish between bad plans and bad execution and by the time the finals rolled around they were playing their best rugby as a team.


Chopping and changing the team each week sends the signal that you don't really know what you are doing or why, and you are just reacting to what happened last week, selecting a team to replay the previous game rather than preparing for the next one and building for the future.

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