Bok coach will rely heavily on squad rotation as he prepares for the Rugby Champs
Boxing clever will have to be the name of the game for Bok coach in squad selection and rotation in the Rugby Championship
● If SAS Springbok docks in New Zealand for the Rugby Championship in October, familiar faces are likely to occupy rearranged deckchairs.
It will be reasonable to assume that the performances that helped the Boks scale the game’s highest peak in Japan would still be etched in the memory of the coaching staff, but, inevitably, the coronavirus is now front of mind.
With little to gauge form and fitness, the Bok brains trust has refused to comment on the guiding principles for their selections for the championship, earmarked for New Zealand over six weeks.
It has, however, been established that Bok coach Jacques Nienaber & Co will rely heavily on squad rotation, as well as some of its most upstanding talent abroad.
Faf de Klerk and Lood de Jager (both Sale), Damian de Allende and RG Snyman
Erasmus and Nienaber need to decide whether they want a younger understudy for Pollard than Jantjies
(both Munster) and Vincent Koch (Saracens) have played in the Irish and English leagues.
In Japan, where players are expected to report for duty before the end of the month, the Boks will have Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears), Franco Mostert (Honda Heat), Makazole Mapimpi (Docomo Dragons) and Kwagga Smith (Yamaha Jubilos). Smit was not in the match squad for the final last year.
In France the start of the Top 14 next month is in doubt after a fresh outbreak in coronavirus cases. Stade Francais have reported 25 positive cases among their players and staff which could affect Cheslin Kolbe (Toulouse), Eben Etzebeth (Toulon) and Handre Pollard (Montpellier) returning on schedule to the Bok team.
Nienaber will be desperate to see Pollard in action, not so much for the flyhalf to prove himself as a step towards match sharpness.
Who his understudy will be is less clearcut. Last year Elton Jantjies was the next in line but Curwin Bosch has started kicking the door down.
Bosch was Super Rugby’s top scorer before the competition was halted and he topped the charts in kicking metres. Some will argue that some of the gloss is lost due to the fact that he missed 10 tackles in the same period. To be fair, Jantjies and Damian Willemse, both operating at first receiver, missed 11 tackles each. Willemse made 16 line breaks, twice the number Jantjies made, and Bosch made none.
Director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and Nienaber will need to decide whether they want a younger understudy for Pollard than the 30-year-old Jantjies.
The Bok midfield and outside backs should have a similar look apart, perhaps, from the role Frans Steyn played in the team last year.
Steyn, whose versatility made it possible for the Boks to unleash their “bomb squad”, hasn’t removed himself from the possibility of playing Test rugby again. There are, however, tyros snapping at his heels, not least Willemse, as well as uncapped former Lions utility back Tyrone Green, who now runs out in the colours of Harlequins.
So successful was the bomb squad and the six-two split it provided on the bench, its use has been decried elsewhere. Either way, the pack will become a talking point with Tendai Mtawarira and Francois Louw having gone into Test retirement.
While the Bok prop cabinet is bulging, the skills flank Louw took with him into the sunset won’t be easily replaced.
The player perhaps best suited as direct replacement for Louw is Ulster’s Marcell Coetzee. He may not quite possess Louw’s guile at the breakdown but Coetzee is a gloriously destructive operator at close quarters.
Although World Cup player Kwagga Smith opted for a deal with Yamaha Jubilo, some locally based players have added their names to the backrow debate. No 8 Sikhumbuzo
Notshe has re-energised his career at the Sharks, and the Stormers’ Juarno Augustus has also played with his heart out.
Reassuringly, world player of the year Pieter-Steph du Toit is training with the Stormers and is still three weeks away from getting the all clear to play.
Apart from Louw and Mtawarira, World Cup player Schalk Brits has also quit, thus creating the opportunity for a third, if not fourth hooker to come into the reckoning. The Cheetahs’ Joseph Dweba proved one of the country’s most impactful players in the last Pro14 and Currie Cup.
He has signed for Bordeaux-Begles and may get onto the field before the bulk of his compatriots.