Erasmus could play Am and Kriel in same team to solve midfield dilemma
Warren Whiteley is still on the injured list and so is the other captain from 2017, Eben Etzebeth, but Rassie Erasmus should feel he is in a rare position for a Springbok coach of having more headaches caused by who to leave out or who to include in his team.
The Springboks start their 2018 campaign against Wales in Washington in six weeks and apart from scrumhalf and possibly No 8, depending on the injury to Whiteley, there are very few positions in the starting team where Erasmus doesn’t have several viable players to choose from.
The Lions, and to a lesser extent the Bulls, are forging ahead of the rest in the South African conference, but all the local Super Rugby teams have individual players who should be impressing Erasmus and causing him sleepless nights as he mulls over his many options.
The Stormers are last in the South African conference, but Pieter-Steph du Toit is playing out of his skin — not as a lock, but as a blindside flank.
The Sharks have been as inconsistent as the Stormers, and they too have a blindside flank who has shown his world-class credentials in the form of Jean-Luc du Preez.
So which one does Erasmus choose? The Erasmus conundrum at loose-forward is further complicated by the fact that Lood de Jager is fitter than he has ever been and, in the Bulls’ No 5 jersey, in the sort of form that made him the 2015 SA Rugby Player of the Year.
That could force Erasmus to consider Du Toit for a role outside the second row.
Even with Etzebeth and JD Schickerling out injured, there is no shortage of options for Erasmus at lock.
You would say the same about tighthead prop too, now that Trevor Nyakane has responded to John Mitchell’s call for him to be conditioned better and is playing the rugby of his life.
Wilco Louw is the incumbent and has been solid for the Stormers, Frans Malherbe is back in training, but let’s not forget that Erasmus has a high regard for the overseasbased Vincent Koch too.
Bismarck du Plessis is expected to return to the Bok mix, probably as an understudy to Marx.
It is the midfield, though, that could be most affected by Erasmus’s overseas preferences. Just look at the following list of potential inside centre selections: Frans Steyn and Jan Serfontein are overseas-based players, but Damian de Allende and Andre Esterhuizen have been great in Super Rugby.
Outside centre, though, could be giving Erasmus more to think about.
When the Bok coach returned from Ireland in November 2017 to take up his position as national director of rugby, he was in agreement that Lukhanyo Am was unlucky not to be the first choice Bok outside-centre.
That view was vindicated last weekend by Am’s masterful performance for the Sharks. Am’s progress has been stunted by him playing for a franchise that is still working on developing a playing style to suit a backline player, but for the past two years he has done enough to show his promise and just recently has started to underline it in quite emphatic fashion. He is a class act.
But while Am would have been the choice of many for the No 13 in 2017, that was when Jesse Kriel was showing little evidence of why he had been chosen to play international rugby. Kriel produced moments of brilliance but too often looked disconnected in midfield and his skill levels also let him down.
That has all changed under the Bulls coach, and he has been in the sort of form this season that makes him hard to ignore. It would be hard to argue a case for either player in contention for the outside-centre selection at the expense of the other, so perhaps Erasmus should consider fielding them both in the same team.
No, I am not suggesting Kriel return to his old position of fullback, where Warrick Gelant is surely now a certainty.
Kriel has always looked like a top international wing in the making. He has pace and is a good finisher and his experience at both fullback and outside-centre would make him a good fit on the wing.