While most of the attention over the past Vodacom United Rugby Championship season has been on Evan Roos’ mercurial rise to fame for the DHL Stormers, with the young No 8 sweeping up every single award on offer, the choice for Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber is likely to be a lot tougher when it comes to choosing his team for the three-test series against Wales.
Roos took virtually every single award on offer this season, winning the Players’ Player of the year award, the Fans’ player of the year award and the Next Gen Player of the Season award for the Stormers as they marched to the title.
But while local fans may well see him as the perfect replacement for Duane Vermeulen, who has undergone knee surgery, the choice is not so simple at Springbok level, where Nienaber is less likely to be led by emotion and more on what exactly he wants to achieve against the Welsh when they arrive.
As Leicester Tigers beat Saracens in this weekend’s Premiership final in England, Jasper Wiese won a hard-fought man-of-the-match award and was the tough nut that led his side to a remarkable victory after a remarkable season.
And while he hasn’t been in the public eye as much as Roos in South Africa, he has already made his test debut and has already played a number of games for the Springboks, winning the man of the match award in the Boks rout of Argentina in Port Elizabeth last year.
Wiese’s physicality is something on a different level, and while he is a very different player to Roos, his form in England will have reminded the Boks of what they have already have in their squad.
Consistency and physicality has been upped to a new level this season for Wiese, who has also sorted out his disciplinary problems that plagued him on his first season in England.
While most have been salivating about Roos’ performances, and he has been a deserved winner of the awards this season, Elrigh Louw’s emergence as a long-term Bok prospect has been watched just as closely, although at times he was in the shadow of Marcell Coetzee, his captain.
Coetzee of course, could easily move into the No 8 role and is at the top of most of the important statistics at URC level, which makes him such a valuable squad member.
The one player who hasn’t been mentioned yet - perhaps because he is more outta-sight, outta-mind is Kwagga Smith.
World Cup winner and a player who has not let the Boks down in any test he has played, Smith’s games in Japan are watched keenly by the Bok management, but to local fans he has been almost forgotten.
An incredible workrate, the ability to get around the field like few other players and explosive pace off the mark make Smith a vital team man for the Boks plans and he was the incumbent behind Vermeulen when the Boks have played over the past few years.
To write him off would be foolish, and the Boks will have made their plans specifically for the Welsh and now have a range of options.
Roos has momentum, speed and power, Wiese is in superb form and has the physicality that northern hemisphere players have come to hate, while Louw is more the classical physical No 8. Smith is a bit of everything, a hybrid player who does more work on the field than most, and adds a new dimension on defence for the Boks.
Either way, the Bok game plan is likely to come down to just how the loose trio fits together, and it shouldn’t be assumed that Roos, with all that momentum, will just walk into the side.
With Pieter-Steph du Toit back and Siya Kolisi likely to lead the side out again, the player the Boks pick will need to complement the workrate and gameplan that they need to defeat the Welsh.
The Boks have had strength in depth in loose forwards before, but with Vermeulen on the sidelines, for the first time they have a plethora of options at eight that they can exploit, and depending on the game plan they want to play, can employ virtually any player to get them on the front foot.
Roos may be the fans favourite, but at the Boks there are a number of options, and Wiese’s performance on the weekend would have reminded the management that in no uncertain terms.