North, south, east and west, the Boks can be the best
The very best South African players overseas are part of the solution to a healthier 2018 Springboks. The best of the best will also make the Boks more competitive at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
There is no longer a conclusion to the South African domestic season. The Cheetahs and Kings continue to play in the expanded PRO 14 in Europe, with the Cheetahs a probable play-off challenger.
And it will be everything but an off-season with more than 300 South African players on duty in Europe, the UK, Ireland and Japan.
There are many superstars among those 300 and there are also some who would never survive as professional players in SA. But there are some very good ones and it would be in SA’s best interests if there was a mature, business-like discussion of their merits.
The South African professional landscape domestically is not strong enough for the Springboks to be a top-three international team. The Boks, if they continue to invest only in domestic player selections, will be a team whose ambitions will be consistent with a second-tier ranking of five, six or seven.
What is primary to any selection? It’s the results of the Springboks.
There should be a revolutionary approach to maximise the best results at the World Cup every four years, and in the interim, the best of those in the south and north should make a contribution to the strength of the Springboks.
The conditioning aspect is always the first thing mentioned in opposition to picking overseas-based players.
Coaches Jake White and Rassie Erasmus, who coached Montpellier and Munster, respectively, have told me that the players are not as well conditioned as those in the southern hemisphere. It doesn’t mean they can’t be selected and it doesn’t make them in any way poorer selections to the South African-based Boks, who have struggled to make an international impression.
Forget player identities for the moment and focus on the principle of selection. As director of rugby and charged with the strategy and selections of the Springboks in 2018, Erasmus can be in a stronger position if his plans include a few camps up north to assess the conditioning and mind-set of players he feels can be an asset at the 2019 World Cup.
Those camps would follow a similar blueprint to camps he will no doubt hold with locally based players in the Super Rugby and Pro 14 competitions.
I’d envisage the core of the June international squad to play England being from players based in SA, while the end-ofyear tour would have a greater emphasis on players Erasmus feels could add to the squad depth in Japan in 2019.
It’s about moving beyond the run-on XV. The strength of a team is in the match 23 and in having like-for-like replacements to make up a world-class squad of 30. It certainly is possible.
There are also lessons to be learned from the 2011 and 2015 World Cup campaigns of the All Blacks when it comes to ensuring veterans are not unnecessarily retired but commit to bringing through the next generation in the squad. It should not be an either/or matter when determining who plays for the Boks. It should be about combining the best of both worlds.
Transformation is too easily bandied about as a reason for the Boks failing. The argument has no merit when 12 of the starting 15 are consistently white players. There are black players every bit as good as their white counterparts. It’s about identification in selection and playing opportunity.
Similarly, when assessing the merits of those who play up north.