Nick Mallett picks his RGR Player of the Series who is the one Springbok Rassie Erasmus needs a replacement for
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and an inset of ex-boss Nick Mallett.
Nick Mallett and Breyton Paulse have selected Malcolm Marx as Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry’s Player of the Series.
The reigning World Rugby Player of the Year featured in all four Tests against the All Blacks, starting three and coming off the bench in the second game, and was incredibly impactful once again.
The 32-year-old was part of a dominant scrum, an accurate lineout and was up to his usual tricks at the breakdown while still maintaining an immense work rate.
Marx also grabbed tries in the third and fourth Test to help win the series after he botched a try in the opening game, which the Springboks lost at Ellis Park.
Malcolm Marx selected as Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Player of the Series
Mallett and Paulse joined fellow former Springbok Owen Nkumane on SuperSport’s The Final Whistle presents the Side Entry show where they picked out their award winners from the series.
Nkumane asked who Paulse’s Player of the RGR Series was; he did not hesitate.
“Malcolm Marx, without a doubt,” he replied.
“He was the World Player of the Year, obviously. Again, things didn’t go well for him in that first Test where we lost at Ellis Park, but the quality of the guy, his monstrous ability, he just suffocated and strangled people.
“Key turnovers at times and let’s not forget that meme where he showed his finger to one of the All Blacks players. He was a busy player and apart from doing the lineouts, scrumming and tackling well, and a lot of players in the team can certainly learn a lot from him. He was absolutely humongous at big, big moments.”
“Nick, you also picked the same player. You got to look at the minutes he’s put out there, how much trust they have in him,” Nkumane added.
“Yeah, exactly. I mean, all four Tests, he went deep in all of them,” the former Springboks boss replied.
“Obviously, he didn’t start the game in Cape Town; that was to bring the Bomb Squad on the front row in the second half in case it was damp, but he was immense.”
Rassie Erasmus needs to find a replacement hooker
While impressed by Marx’s performances, he is the one player that Mallett believes Rassie Erasmus has to find a replacement for.
Since 2019, the Springboks have relied heavily on Marx and Bongi Mbonambi to fill the hooker roles in the matchday 23s, with a handful of players featuring as the third-choice selection, namely Schalk Brits, Joseph Dweba, Marnus van der Merwe, and Johan Grobbelaar.
Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden have also featured as hybrid forwards, covering the back-rower and hooker, while Jan-Hendrik Wessels has done the same but as a loosehead prop/hooker.
Mbonambi slipped down the Boks’ pecking order last year, with Grobbelaar, Van der Merwe and Wessels given more opportunities, but none of the three have cemented their place as Marx’s back-up. This meant that Erasmus turned to Fourie to cover the hooker position in the final three Tests of the series.
Considering Marx missed the knockout stages of the 2023 Rugby World Cup through injury, Mallett believes that it’s essential that Erasmus finds a back-up hooker and one who is a specialist in the position.
“He’s the one person who we need to find a replacement for because Deon Fourie is turning 40 soon,” Mallett said.
“We need someone knocking on the door here. I think Jan-Hendrik Wessels would do a great job there if he could concentrate just on being a hooker and not moving too much from loosehead prop to hooker. He’s a sort of hybrid front-row forward, but I think we need a specialist behind Marx.
“I mean, he can be a specialist hooker who can also scrum as a loosehead prop.”
Owen Nkumane picks All Black as his Player of the Series
Nkumane, a former hooker, threw Grobbelaar’s name into the mix before moving on to who his Player of the Series was, surprisingly selecting an All Black.
“I think it’s the grunt; that’s why they have Fourie ahead of him in terms of just being able to go to the dark places when it’s required,” he said.
“Wessels and Grobbelaar are the up-and-coming hookers.
Cam Roigard was my Player of the Series, I thought he really got New Zealand’s attack on the go, controlled the game and tempo.”
“Oh, so you like players who dive?” Paulse quipped in reference to the coming together with Cobus Reinach in the third Test match.
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“No, not at all,” Nkumane replied. “Forget the acting. From a rugby point of view, the service kept them going, tested our defence. For me, he was a Player of the Series. I thought he put his hand up nicely.”
Mallett had the final say: “Yeah, he was very good. He really was good. It was a pity to dive, but in professional sport, if he could have had a penalty try scratched off because of a foul committed just prior… Unfortunately, their scrum was going into the North Stand at the time, so…”
