Juarno Augustus being added to the No 8s who won’t be available for the start of the Springbok international season wasn’t what coach Rassie Erasmus would have wanted but what could have been a mini-crisis in the position has been averted by the unexpected recovery of Jasper Wiese.
The man considered first choice in the position since the retirement of Duane Vermeulen has been out of rugby since he suffered a neck injury playing for his Japanese club Urayasu D-Rocks and although he said back in April that he hoped to be back playing by mid-June, that was uncertain.
On Thursday Erasmus confirmed that Wiese will be ready for the international season, and may even be available for selection for the opening non-test international against the Barbarians in Cape Town on 28 June.
The Boks have experienced a bit of bad luck when it comes to No 8, with Elrigh Louw, who has played there and did well last year, out long term, and his Vodacom Bulls teammate Cameron Hanekom joined him on the injured list after last weekend’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship semifinal between the Bulls and Hollywoodbets Sharks in Pretoria.
That prompted Erasmus to call up Evan Roos, who was a surprising omission to some critics from the last Bok alignment camp and the initial squad that was called up for the current camp that is building up towards the international season kick-off in Cape Town in just over a fortnight.
“It is a blow not to have Juarno with us and available as we wanted to get him involved and have a look at him, he has played for a team that has won titles,” said Erasmus during a break in the training camp in Johannesburg on Thursday.
“Juarno was World Junior Player of the Year back in I think it was 2017 but he is not a 'laaitie' anymore. I am not completely sure what his injury is but I believe it is something to do with his back. Unfortunately he is between two clubs. He is moving from Northampton Saints and Ulster. So we couldn’t bring him in ourselves for rehab so unfortunately he is not with us now and won’t be playing for us against the Barbarians or Italy.
“But fortunately we have Evan (Roos) in the group now and Jasper (Wiese) is doing well and may be ready to play against the Barbarians,” he added.
Rassie Erasmus lists all the injuries and absentees from the Springbok camp ahead of the 2025 season 🤕🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/2fy2vQunPl
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) June 12, 2025
NOTHING FISHY ABOUT ROOS OMISSION
On the subject of Roos’ omission, Erasmus refuted any speculation that there might have been a personal reason why the DHL Stormers star loose-forward was left out of the alignment camp or this first official Bok camp of the season.
“It wouldn’t be nice to talk about (the specifics of) team selection but I saw what people wrote and said about it,” said the Bok coach.
“It is definitely not a personal issue. Everyone has differences on who is playing well and who is not playing well. Evan is now in the squad because Cameron (Hanekom) is injured and because Juarno is now also out. In our opinion Evan wasn’t in better form than those players. That is normally the reason a player doesn’t get selected.
“You must also remember that apart from form having players like Cameron and Juarno who are No 8s, there are also other guys in the squad like Kwagga (Smith) and Siya (Kolisi) who can also play No 8. Sometimes some guys just don’t fit into what we are trying to do, the specifics we are looking for. Evan was the next guy in when all those guys got injured. I contacted him on Saturday evening when I saw Cameron was injured through (team manager) Charles Wessels.”
Erasmus said that the squad will be whittled down to 42 players on Sunday morning after he has had a chance to assess the Bulls’ injury situation after their URC final against Leinster.
“There are around eight Bulls players that will be joining us next week, obviously that excludes injured guys like Cameron and Gerhard Steenekamp. We have about 53 guys with us now but we will work with 42 from Sunday,” said Erasmus.
“Obviously RG Snyman (playing against the Bulls for Leinster in the final) will also only join us next week and the same with Handre Pollard who is playing in a final for Leicester.
“We have a few additional injured players. We have Ntuthuko Mchunu who has picked up a knee injury and with Gerhard (Steenekamp) still out that means we might have a problem at loosehead. We only have Ox (Nche) and Jan-Hendrik (Wessels) there at the moment. Thomas du Toit is with Bath and won’t be back next week.
“Grant Williams (scrumhalf) might be ready for the Italy or Georgia (but not the Barbarians). Jordan Hendrikse has a hamstring injury and because the Stormers never made the URC semifinal it means we won’t be able to use Damian Willemse as he is now suspended until the Italy test. I won’t play the players coming in next week against the Barbarians as there won’t be enough time for them to get used to the new things we have been working on.”