Springboks team: Five takeaways from Rassie Erasmus’ full-strength side built on the ‘nucleus’ of All Blacks’ beaters
Five takeaways from the experienced Springboks team Rassie Erasmus has named to face Italy in the Nations Championship clash in Turin.
Rassie Erasmus has named his Springboks team for the clash against Italy in the Nations Championship in Turin; here are our five takeaways.
Top Line: Full hog
Those hoping that fresh faces would be rolled out against the Italians on Saturday would be sorely disappointed as Erasmus named a team beaming with experience, with no real shock selection, debuts, or controversy.
The nucleus of this team beat the All Blacks three times en route to winning Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series and is the kind of side that one would have expected to start next week against France considering the injury list.
Siya Kolisi captains the team and is joined in the back-row by Pieter-Steph du Toit and Jasper Wiese, with the trio extending their record as the most-capped Springbok loose trio combination, contributing immensely to the 835 Test caps’ worth of experience in the run-on team – the 20th most-experienced starting XV in Bok history.
In the absence of Eben Etzebeth, Salmaan Moerat earns his first cap of the year after recovering from neck and toe injuries that have sidelined him for previous Test matches and partners Ruan Nortje in the second-row while Thomas du Toit, Malcolm Marx and Ox Nche are the starting front-rowers once again.
Morne van den Berg is reinstated as the run-on number nine after coming off the bench against the Wallabies last time out, and he will link up with fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel start a Test match for the 49th time as a centre combination while the back-three that defeated the All Blacks in Baltimore start once again with Damian Willemse at full-back and Ethan Hooker and Kurt-Lee Arendse on the wings.
Much like the run-on team, Erasmus has backed arguably his best available players on the replacements bench, with Jan-Hendrik Wessels named as Marx’s back-up at hooker, and he is joined by props Gerhard Steenekamp and Wilco Louw. Lood de Jager is the replacement lock in the 6-2 split, with Paul de Villiers and Cameron Hanekom primed to make an impact in the loose forwards. Grant Williams and Manie Libbok will add pace and flair in the final knockings as the replacement backs.
All in all, this is a no-risk, full-hog selection – considering the injury list – from the Springboks coaching team looking to get the month off to a strong start, perhaps creating the opportunity to throw rookies into the mix or do some experimenting later on.
Cohesion and combination
If there was going to be experimentation, it would be against Italy. That was the conclusion many pundits and fans drew when looking at the Springboks November fixtures, but that hasn’t proven to be the case, with Erasmus explaining that there was simply no time to get many of the players up to speed.
The Bok boss only arrived in Turin on Monday after attending a World Rugby meeting in London, while many of his players travelled from all over to link up with the squad. It therefore comes at no surprise that the Japan-based players, who arrived before the rest, have been selected.
Erasmus is also a serial competitor, and with the prospect of winning a trophy, even if it’s one that doesn’t have much history or tradition, he is keen to get his mitts on it. He will also be eager to get back to winning ways after losing to the Wallabies.
“It’s a cup that everybody is competing for,” Erasmus said. “We rolled the dice a little bit in that last game against Australia, and that didn’t go too well. But some guys got game time in Perth.”
At the same time, his eye is not off the big prize next year, admitting that he is ‘trying to build’ for the World Cup. “As a team, you also want to try and be in the running for this Nations Championship cup when it comes to the play-offs or final round.
“We obviously are taking it seriously. We didn’t have a lot of training time like the other teams. We’ve been fortunate with about 10 to 12 Japanese-based players who’ve been here with some of the coaches since last weekend. We had our first training session on Monday afternoon, so everyone is now on the same page.”
In a bid to stay in the running for the Finals Weekend, Erasmus has gone to the tried and tested where possible and even selected the stable combinations like the record-setting loose forward and centres. With a short runway to the first November international, it’s completely understandable that the head coach has gone the safe route, particularly against an Azzurri side that might be somewhat unpredictable considering their injury list and were no pushovers the last time these two sides met in Turin 12 months ago.
The search for answers for the World Cup
The Springboks will be doing some pressure testing this November, Erasmus confirmed after naming his team, with hooker being their main experiment. Wessels will provide cover and impact from the bench for Marx, who is clearly the first-choice number two in Green and Gold.
The question of Johan Grobbelaar’s absence in the touring party was raised to the Springboks boss, who explained that the coaching staff put themselves under pressure to select Wessels and Marco van Staden in the hooking position. To do that, they had to drop Grobbelaar from the squad to remove the temptation of falling back on his expertise.
Van Staden and Wessels have previously been used to cover the hooking role but have primarily been selected as a loose forward and loosehead prop. Erasmus obviously needs to find a contender for Marx in the hooker position, and Wessels can be just that; considering the technical demands of the role, he needs to be selected as a hooker first and a prop second. That is unlikely to ever happen with Van Staden, but Erasmus needs to know whether he really can cover the position against teams that are less set-piece focused.
Springboks: Malcolm Marx opens up on how Rassie Erasmus sold Bomb Squad tactic to his players
Breakdown focus
The breakdown has become a central focus for the Springboks, who were excellent under the high ball in July and against the All Blacks, whilst the set-pieces have been firing too. However, the breakdown has been a facet of the game that teams have been able to put the South Africans under the cosh.
South Africa faced Italy three times last year, and in each Test, the Azzurri were able to gain an advantage in the rucks and the head coach has made selection decisions that directly address that. Marx, Wiese and Kolisi always crack the nod for the important Tests and are all excellent at the breakdown but it’s on the bench where the breakdown is clearly addressed with De Villiers and Hanekom picked in a 6-2 split.
When piecing together a 6-2 split, Erasmus has switched between picking two locks and two loose forwards, and when it has been the latter, it is usually against teams that are excellent at the breakdown like New Zealand, Ireland and Australia – Italy certainly fall into that category too.
Listening to the public but blocking out the noise
The most polarising selection that the coaching team has made for the meeting in Turin is that of Moerat, who will don the number four jumper with RG Snyman and Etzebeth injured, while Jean Kleyn was overlooked despite his excellent form with Gloucester. Cobus Wiese has also impressed with the Bulls and in Green and Gold this year but was also snubbed.
Erasmus was rather combative when asked about Moerat’s selection, considering how much flak the former Stormers captain receives online. A quick look at the replies from the team release on X perfectly highlights just that:
“Move on from Moerat for goodness sake.”
“Salmaan!!!?? What…no…how?”
“Whats Moerat doing there?”
“Moerat does not belong in the team and neither does Williams.”
As much as Erasmus wants to unite and make South Africans happy through his work with the Springboks, he is going to do it his way. He made that clear when discussing his selection choice.
“We don’t get caught up in social media,” Erasmus told reporters on Monday. “I listen to social media. I like South Africans who have opinions about things, and I’ve certainly seen it when Willie [le Roux] got slaughtered, and when Faf [de Klerk] was taken out, and then times when a guy made it against the odds. But I’ve never really listened to people who talk nonsense about Salmaan, because he’s not the kind of guy you see doing the flashy work on the field, and we don’t expect him to. We expect him to do what he always does for us.
“He’s been our captain four or five times, I’m not 100% sure, but I think he’s won every single time. We need a grinder, like a Jean Kleyn, like an RG Snyman. I think that’s a bit flashy as well, but it’s something we need in the team, and Salmaan brings it to us.”
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Delving into where Moerat’s strengths lie, he continued: “Nobody probably understands how hard he scrums, how hard he mauls, how hard he cleans the ruck, how physical he is doing it, and how he stops mauls. You can never really explain that to people, but we’re not upset that people don’t see it.
“As long as Salmaan knows, and his teammates know, that we see it and that we value it. He’s the kind of guy we enjoy having in our team. When it comes to things people don’t understand or don’t see fully, I can understand why they have their opinions, but obviously we have our own opinion about someone.”
To his credit. There have been several selection calls in the past that have been criticised, only for Erasmus to eventually be proven right. Morne van den Berg is perhaps the most recent of which, with many questioning how he was getting into the squad ahead of players like De Klerk, Embrose Papier and even Haashim Pead. Not every selection will be a massive hit but Erasmus has a pretty impressive track record.
