Pieter-Steph puts smile on Rassie’s face

While there are a few other serious headaches for Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, the one position which much bring a smile to his face is in the No 5 lock position.

And the one player who should provide him with the biggest smile is the rich vein of form currently enjoyed by Stormers lock Pieter-Steph du Toit (right).

Du Toit, Lood de Jager and Franco Mostert will afford Erasmus with depth, but it’s at No 4 with Eben Etzebeth still injured, that Erasmus will have to look at other candidates like RG Snyman, Chris van Zyl and Ruan Botha.

Du Toit was named Man-of-theMatch last weekend in the 29-17 Super Rugby win over the Bulls at Newlands, but in his typically modest manner, he spoke of the pride returning to the franchise.

“I’m trying to do everything I can to help us and the team and after a few matches the fans wrote us off,” said Du Toit.

“Hopefully they’ll come back to support us now and we had wonderful support at Newlands.”

Du Toit also offers Erasmus various options at blindside flank and lock, similar to the role Mostert is fulfulling at the Lions.

The lock was also happy they had turned their scrum performance around after being on the receiving end earlier at Loftus.

“After the first scrum I thought this is what they did to us a couple of weeks ago up there,” he said.

“And it wasn’t just the one scrum. We let down a few of the scrums but bounced back the end of the game.”