My countrymen are proving their worth
SOUTH African players were key protagonists in this season’s Gallagher Premiership with Andre Esterhuizen earning the RPA Players’ Player of the Year award and Jasper Wiese named man-of-the-match in the final.
In terms of Esterhuizen, the award is so well deserved. I would say it’s the highest accolade in the game because there is nothing better than your peers voting for you and marking you out as the best player in the Premiership. That is an incredible award. He’s thrived in a Harlequins team which loves to play expansive rugby, throw the ball around and score loads of tries. In that sense he has developed another aspect of his game that he probably wouldn’t have had he played somewhere else. He’s been brilliant and hopefully he will also get the opportunity to take another step forward.
With eight tries, six assists and 48 points, he has been pivotal to Harlequins’ success. Very much like Wiese, he has developed and continued to get better and better which is fantastic. I think the competition for the
Springbok No.12 jersey will be very close. Esterhuizen will be pushing Damian de Allende and it’s a great solution for the Bok management to allow those guys to feed off each other.
When it comes to Wiese, he is still going to develop as a player because he is relatively young and, from an experience point of view, he’s still growing. What Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber want is for their Springbok players who are abroad to operate in good systems and Leicester’s is one of said systems. Wiese, who is incredibly combative and physical, will be playing to his strengths.
Another player who cannot be ignored is Saracens prop Vincent Koch. The ‘Vanilla Gorilla’ was brilliant when I was still there at the club and he continues to be. He is such an explosive machine and hopefully he will continue to go from strength to strength. We have got formidable front rowers in South Africa, and whether he starts or forms part of the ‘Bomb Squad’, he is definitely one of them.