Steven Kitshoff: Rassie Erasmus has a ‘crew’ of Springboks that he turns to when the ‘chips are down’
Steven Kitshoff believes that Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series revealed which Springbok players Rassie Erasmus trusts most.
Since returning as head coach of the men in Green and Gold after the 2023 Rugby World Cup victory in France, Erasmus has heavily rotated his team from week to week.
He utilised around 50 players in the two full international seasons after World Rugby’s showpiece event three years ago, but after losing the opening game to the All Blacks at Ellis Park, that all changed.
Rassie’s crew
Erasmus made several changes for the second match in Cape Town, mostly on the bench, and would utilise largely the same group of players for the remaining three Tests against Dave Rennie’s men.
In fact, the only changes were made due to injury, with Damian Willemse sustaining a niggle in the first Test while Cheslin Koble broke his jaw in the victory in the Mother City.
Kitshoff, who was a regular feature in Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber’s teams before his career was brought to a crushing halt through injury, believes that those who featured predominantly throughout the series are the men the head coach can turn to when a result is needed.
“When the chips are down, Rassie tends to back a certain squad,” the double World Cup-winning prop said on the Rugby Unity and For the Love of Rugby SA collaboration podcast.
“We saw the selection protocol throughout the Nations Championship; he rotated and used it to give a lot of opportunities and game time, but when it came to the All Blacks and when it came to big games, there was a mentality that there’s going to be 23 to 25 guys that he really backs.”
Crucial players at the next World Cup
That group of players includes the likes of double World Cup winners Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Cobus Reinach, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende and Cheslin Kolbe, who are all in their 30s now.
While Kitshoff predicts that they won’t be around much longer after the 2027 World Cup in Australia, he thinks they will still be called upon next year by Erasmus and will be crucial players ahead of the tournament.
“Those guys are probably going to be the ones that we’re going to see going into the World Cup season,” he continued.
“Some of them are a little bit older already, but he’s got a key group of guys, and he likes to fill in when there’s opportunity, but when the chips are down, it’s his crew and that gives me a lot of confidence that there’s not going to be much rotation going into a big World Cup season.”
While there are plenty of double World Cup winners still in the Springboks set-up, Erasmus has filtered some of the older players from the past two tournaments out of the squad.
The likes of Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch, Makazole Mapimpi, Lukhanyo Am, Faf de Klerk and Willie le Roux have all fallen out of favour in recent times through injury and/or performance dips.
Erasmus has also relied heavily on fresher talents like Ethan Hooker, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morne van den Berg, and Ruan Nortje in bigger Test matches.
