Rassie Erasmus’ fascinating take on Springboks’ incredible youth development as he admits to ‘missing’ generation
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and rising star Zachary Porthen.
The Springboks have developed the strongest talent pool in the world but it could have been even deeper, according to head coach Rassie Erasmus.
South Africa and their coaches have done a remarkable job in bringing through their players, to the extent that they have an incredible amount of Test-ready individuals.
Erasmus can rotate at will while suffering little drop-off in standards and that is due to systems put in place by SA Rugby a few years prior to the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
However, the Boks boss believes that it could have been even better.
The Springboks’ age gap
“We work in tandem in South Africa. Since we’ve started the elite player development pathway way back in 2013, we started getting the rewards in 2019 and 2020, and then we got Covid,” he said.
“I think we missed a lot of players in that Covid era, who didn’t play Craven Week, SA Schools, didn’t go to the SA academy, didn’t play Junior Springboks.
“That is why I think you will see a gap in the age bracket between 22 and 26 in the Springboks set-up because those guys didn’t play rugby. A lot of them stopped and didn’t get contracts.
“We work very closely with [SA Rugby general manager of high performance] Dave [Wessels] and with [Junior Springboks head coach] Kevin [Foote], and then we do our depth chart and then we try and get guys as quickly as possible into the set-up, just to see the guy eye-to-eye.
“Does he feel comfortable what we’re doing? Does he understand what we’re saying and how should we approach those guys?
“Dave is great at that and Kevin is great at that.”
If there is a slight gap in talent, it will be particularly felt in the front five, but the Springboks are well stocked in that area despite the issues they have at lock heading into the 2026 Test season.
“Apart from the junior guys that have just come in, Jan-Hendrik [Wessels] is not an old guy, Ox [Nche] is an experienced guy, Grobbies [Johan Grobbelaar] is playing great rugby. Malcolm [Marx] is 31 then we’ve got [Carlu] Sadie, Zach [Porthen], Wilco [Louw], Neethling [Fouche], Vincent Koch,” Erasmus said.
“At lock, everybody thought we were a bit thin – of course we had a lot of injuries and experienced guys not playing – but there’s Riley [Norton] in the mix.”
Eben Etzebeth’s return
Erasmus also states that world-class second-row Eben Etzebeth is not far off after suffering an injury following his return from a 12-match suspension.
“We’re doing the final fitness and strength things with Eben to make sure he’s ready for England, which he will be. Lood [de Jager] might be ready then, but a guy like Riley has really put up his hand,” he said.
The Boks boss added: “A guy like Paul de Villiers did the best in the fitness test, not that it should be the headline but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be.
“He did the best of everybody in the fitness test, which is a hard thing, and he played the previous weekend, so we are lucky to be in a position where SA Rugby has created structures where we get some really good players filtering through the system.”
