You could select six teams of expatriated Springboks

WHILE Allister Coetzee is fighting for his coaching life with South Africa it is impossible not to sympathise with his predicament in that his selectorial hands are so tied.

Lloyd Hale, who describes himself as a Welshman living abroad, recently sent me his selection of six separate Springbok teams based on ex-Test players currently based in Europe or Japan, and for good measure lobbed in a powerful Boks XV from those who have opted for other countries – the likes of CJ Stander, Brad Brritt, Rory Kockott, Scott Spedding, WP Nell, Josh Stauss, DTH Van der Merwe, Quinn Roux and David Denton.

Player drain is rapidly killing SA rugby with the competition for places back home lacking the required intensity. Take scrum-half for example. Ross Cronje is a decent player with potential but has got nobody on his heels to apply the pressure needed to reach the next level. That’s because Ruan Pienaar, Cobus Reinach, Faf de Klerk, Francois Hougaard and Ricky Januarie are all overseas, with Rory Kockott opting for France.

Meanwhile No.8 is a problem and will continue to be so in the absence of Ruan Ackermann, Robbie Diak, Duane Vermuelen, Willem Alberts, Cornell du Preez, Antone Classen and even Don Armand who as a Zimbabwean might normally have been expected to go the Boks route. SA has continued to produce great rugby players during the radical transition it has undergone, it simply hasn’t found a template to create a model whereby they can all feed into the system.

Here, for interest, is my Boks Overseas XV: