It was largely the team most would have anticipated but the one clear message that was sent out through the one unexpected selection for Saturday’s final Castle Lager test in Cape Town is that the Springbok first choice players are not royal game.
By selecting Jaden Hendrikse to wear the No 9 jersey against Wales at the DHL Stadium, coach Jacques Nienaber has indicated that there is keen competition for places in the Springbok starting team. He said that the man that Hendrikse plays ahead of this week, World Cup winner Faf de Klerk, would have to fight to get his place back.
“We all know what Faf brings, in terms of lots of experience and he is a world class player, but we saw Jaden’s performance in Bloemfontein at the weekend and we as a coaching group felt that he did really well,” said Nienaber at the team announcement press conference.
“We have several in form players at the moment who are knocking on the door to be selected. We have a lot of established players who won a World Cup for us and also won a British and Irish Lions series last year, but they need to keep focusing on their performance week in and week out.
“The challenge for Jaden now is that I know Faf will come hard at him to get his place back. We all know Faf and what a fighter he is and I strongly suspect he will put in a big effort to get the No 9 jersey back. The challenge for Jaden now is to put in the kind of consistent performances like we saw from him at the weekend to keep his place in the starting team.”
Nienaber added that Hendrikse, who plays for the Cell C Sharks, had the attributes the Boks are looking for from a scrumhalf.
“Jaden has a really well-balanced game. He has a good kicking game, his passing is good and he has a lot of accuracy to his pass, and he brings a nice rhythm to our attacking game,” said the Bok coach.
Hendrikse’s selection was the one that raised eyebrows, but it was not the only selection that required explanation, with Trevor Nyakane moving from tighthead to play loosehead this week and thus keeping the powerfully built Sharks loosehead prop Ox Nche out of the team.
“We are very fortunate when it comes to prop that we have a few guys who can play on both sides of the scrum. You would have seen that we played Thomas du Toit on the loosehead side last week whereas he has played most of his rugby at tighthead. It is the same with Trevor. We are fortunate that he can produce what we need at both loosehead and tighthead.
“Ox played well in the first test against Wales, and I thought Trevor was equally as good (at tighthead) last week. But we decided to go with the front row that got us good results last year,” he added.
There are 10 changes to the team that lost in the last two minutes last week, and Hendrikse was the only player that came from outside of the usual starting team to play in Bloemfontein that retains his place after last week’s raft of changes and alternative team. That does not mean though that the other players who played well in Bloemfontein are being ignored.
“There were a couple of guys that stood out. You can watch a guy play a lot of club or franchise rugby but you need to see him in a test match where there is pressure,” said Nienaber.
“It is unfair on the player to select him for a game where the series has already been won and there is less pressure, when there is nothing on the game. That was the reason we went with that selection last week.
“It was not a case of disrespecting Wales. We could easily have beaten Wales and I thought the guys played really well. They were winning the game until the 78th minute. But we could see that with some guys there is still a big of a gap in their development and it is our job as coaches to close that gap.”