SA selectors have backup players coming out their ears
During the 2019 Rugby World Cup there was one nagging question that kept being asked as the Springboks advanced towards the business end of the competition. What happens if Handré Pollard is injured?
It felt as if there was a big gap between the Bok first choice and second choice flyhalf, Elton Jantjies, and then an even bigger one to the next cab off the rank. And there were questions over other positions that nagged too. Duane Vermeulen’s backup at No 8 for one. And Pieter-Steph du Toit on the blindside flank.
The success of the November tour that ended with a resounding victory over England and the growth the Boks have experienced in their depth this year can be measured by the probability that a repeat of that sort of question now looks unlikely for the 2023 World Cup in France.
We are 10 months out and the Boks have most positions covered, including the most important ones.
Jantjies’s experience will make him important if he gets his head space right before the World Cup. But not having him and Pollard on tour undeniably worked in favour of Bok coach Jacques Nienaber regarding his comfort in the position before 2023.
It enabled Damian Willemse to show that he is a man who can be fallen back on in a crisis, and that’s what Nienaber is looking for.
He did miss two tackles in the build-up to England’s only try, but he was playing on the wing by then. To my mind, he was the man of the match, good though the official recipient of that award, Franco Mostert, was in a game in which he made it clear the 2019 World Cup Player of the Year, Du Toit, is not indispensable.
Both players have excelled when given a chance. Willemse is unlikely to be seen as a firstchoice specialist No 10, though there is a debate to be had given how the Boks have grown their game in the past few weeks Willie Le Roux at fullback dovetailing with Willemse and alternating as first receiver has been a big part of the strides they have made on attack.
But Willemse still strikes me as being SA’s version of New Zealand’s Beauden Barrett —a stellar rugby player but not necessarily the ideal specialist flyhalf. He’s not ambidextrous enough; he doesn’t kick with both feet, and is sometimes still boxed in.
There’s also the placekicking issue. Would the Boks be comfortable going into a World Cup final with Cheslin Kolbe, Faf de Klerk and Willemse as the kickers? I wouldn’t, and the pressure of a World Cup final is one of the reasons Rassie Erasmus always places such a high premium on experience regarding flyhalf.
If the Boks can beat England at Twickenham with Willemse at flyhalf, and they would have beaten the World Cup hosts, France, in Marseille had it not been for the Du Toit red card, he can definitely be backed to be the member of the Bok squad who can be turned to as a flyhalf should emergency require it.
After relying on just two pivots in the first few years of their coaching reign, Erasmus and Nienaber have spread the net this year.
Regardless of how it came about, it has worked out for them, and you can add Manie Libbok, whose career might have ended had he not moved from the Sharks to play under John Dobson at the Stormers, to the list of options.
Libbok’s improvement is an illustration of why the Boks achieving success cannot depend just on the national coaches. It also depends on the help those coaches receive from the coaching systems at the franchises. In that sense, it isn’ ta coincidence that so many of the debutants as well as those who have improved the most at international level Kurt-Lee Arendse, Libbok, Marvin Orie, Canan Moodie and Evan Roos to name a few hail from the two franchises that contested the United Rugby Championship (URC) final.
Dobson’s man management and appreciation of the soft skills required to supplement technical skills could by the World Cup have developed another player to be ready for a big role should it be required in the form of Joseph Dweba.
When Dweba arrived in Cape Town, Dobson said he just needed love. Dobson knows how to manage players, so don’t bet against Dweba growing in the same way at the Stormers as Libbok has. His throwing was much improved in Friday’s URC game against the Scarlets and he was devastating in general play.
The Boks have wings coming out of their ears as well as three No 8s if you factor in Vermeulen and note Roos’s contribution to the Twickenham win. With Orie adding to the options at lock, it doesn’t appear this World Cup will be a time where we ask what happens if a player is injured, but a time where the coaches scratch their heads over which good players to leave out.