It has emerged that Evan Roos is out for the rest of the year due to a shoulder operation to a long term shoulder injury that specialists have advised him should not be delayed.
With the prognosis being that he will be out of rugby for six to nine months, it means the DHL Stormers will be without their star No 8 for much of the forthcoming season, with the best case scenario being that he returns in February.
It is the right time for Roos to undergo the procedure, however, as although the Springboks are in action in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and the Carling Currie Cup is being played in this window, these middle of the year months are effectively the South African off-season.
The start of the next edition of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship is still almost two months away, so if Roos does make it back in six months he misses four months and not the entire season.
There is so much grey area around the seasons in this period where the national team is still committed to the southern hemisphere international schedule but the franchise players are on a northern hemisphere timeline that the confusion was reflected in the media stories about Roos’s injury.
“Roos out for the rest of the season,” was a common headline. Which season? Surely his season officially ended when the Stormers lost their URC quarterfinal to eventual champions Glasgow Warriors at the Scotstoun in early June.
DEPTH IS TAKING HEAT OUT OF SELECTION DEBATES
It is unclear whether Rassie Erasmus’ decision to leave out Roos from the squad that is currently in Australia for the start of the Castle Lager Rugby Championships was influenced by knowledge of Roos’ condition.
The player has told reporters that he “can’t give a hundred per cent with the shoulder injury”.
So it probably did have an impact, although Erasmus made no mention of it when he announced the squad for the two game tour Down Under. Instead he spoke about the need to spread the selection net and give Elrigh Louw an opportunity to increase his international experience by getting opportunities against a top team (which Australia still are relative to Portugal or Wales).
Let me be straight: If I was the sole Bok selector, I would play Roos in every game he is available for. In my eyes he is that good, and he has more to his game than even the probable first choice, the currently suspended Jasper Wiese. But the word “my” is the operative one there. It is subjective.
Which selection unavoidably is. If I was selecting the team, the France based centre Jan Serfontein would also have played international rugby for the Boks in the period dating back to when Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber took over in 2018.
Serfontein was the best Bok performer during Allister Coetzee’s ill fated tenure, but has not featured in the green and gold since.
But Erasmus has effectively presided over the winning of two successive World Cup titles, and the players who have played in Serfontein’s position have excelled.
And Wiese has done what was expected of him too, ditto the now retired Duane Vermeulen and, when he has been used at No 8, Kwagga Smith.
Which brings up a point - selection is becoming less of the hot topic and fuel for argument in this era of Bok rugby than it used to be, and it is not just because the Boks are reigning World Cup champions.
It’s also because Erasmus is succeeding in his mission of creating depth.
Whereas the omission of someone as good as Roos would have been frontline news when the Boks were less well equipped when it came to both class and experience, it isn’t now because we know that Erasmus is right - Louw is also talented enough to deserve a chance. He was injured at the start of the international season, but Cameron Hanekom is too.
WHY EXPERIMENTAL SELECTIONS ARE LESS RISKY NOW
This is being written before the announcement of the Bok team to play Australia in Brisbane at the weekend, but we should expect it to have a few players in it that might be viewed as experimental selections.
That would have been considered risky in the past, and it cost the Boks the result when they played their first game against Australia in Australia during the Erasmus era in 2018.
It will be recalled that Erasmus kept some of his big guns out for the following week’s clash with the All Blacks in Wellington, a move that worked as the Boks scored a seismic breakthrough victory over the then undisputed world No 1 team at the 'Cake Tin'.
Six years on and there is much less risk because Erasmus has built a squad that just doesn’t have depth in talent but also depth in experience.
New players can be brought in around an experienced core, a luxury the Boks didn’t have in 2018.
Whatever team Erasmus comes up with for the Suncorp Stadium clash, it will have enough World Cup winners in it to be able to deal with Australia while at the same time easing the transition of newcomers to international rugby.
The out of international window clash with Wales was a good case in point when it comes to what Erasmus is doing that is working.
was a debutant at flyhalf (and on the bench) in that game as well as on the wing and several other relatively green players were in the squad, but the starting pack was experienced.
The Wallabies are a level up from Wales, at least on their home field, but the Boks have the depth of talent and experienced players now to be able to handle the Aussies even if there is an experimental element to the team.
THE SA SYSTEM IS WORKING
And beyond the Erasmus effect, the South African system is now producing talent and therefore options that must be envied by previous Bok coaches who worked at a time when the omission of a player as good as Roos would have been a major issue.
That the URC isn’t always played at full strength may be an issue for some franchise coaches and owners, but it does have a positive impact on depth by providing opportunities for growth.
And while it is crazy for the Currie Cup to be played at this time, and should revert to being played concurrently with the URC as it was before, the extra layer provided by the domestic competition is crucial too.
Admittedly some of the defence has been mediocre, and some team selections in the early phases might not have been out of place for an Old Crocks XV, but generally the URC unions have embraced the developmental aspect.
While there were some old timers such as flyhalf Lionel Cronje, lock Reniel Hugo and Bok veteran Trevor Nyakane there to provide experience, the Hollywoodbets Sharks team that fought back for a thrilling draw against the Airlink Pumas at the weekend was pretty close to being an age-group team.
Erasmus has already spoken about the potential of 20-year-old centre Jurenzo Julius, and on the evidence of the Nelspruit game, he is spot on.
The Currie Cup is providing the platform for players of that ilk to develop and the talent coming through belies the rather perplexing continued failure of the national under-20 team. Having a Currie Cup to develop in makes the Junior Bok travails less of an issue.