The pressure that is on the Springboks heading into Saturday’s second Castle Lager Rugby Championship game against the Wallabies might be more related to what the result might mean to Rassie Erasmus’ plans going forward than to their chances of winning the competition.
If the worst case scenario unfolds and the Boks lose, the reaction of supporters might force a rethink and adjustment to the selection strategy that is focused on developing for the next World Cup on Australian soil in 2027 while also trying to win now. But Erasmus would back his team to still win the Championship. As he said at the team announcement press conference, “This is not a make-or-break game”.
The #Springboks team for tomorrow's clash against Australia in Perth 🇿🇦#ForeverGreenForeverGold pic.twitter.com/DWJCv706Q4
— Springboks (@Springboks) August 16, 2024
The Bok coach raised eyebrows with his much changed team after the comprehensive win over the Australians in the first test in Brisbane last week. The old dictum that you don’t change winning teams and you don’t fix what isn’t broken wasn’t in Erasmus’ thinking when he chose a new captain in Salmaan Moerat to lead a team that features 11 changes.
Those who support Erasmus’ move will describe it as bold, those who don’t will think of it as risky. For the latter group, memories were no doubt evoked of what happened in Bloemfontein two years ago when, with the South Africans up 1-0 in their series against Wales, the then Bok coach Jacques Nienaber made 14 changes. And the hosts lost.
Yet if you look at it dispassionately Erasmus really has no choice but to switch around his selections and rely on a squad rather than a core first choice team to play every game. If South Africa persist with the players that won the last World Cup they will be going into the next one in Australia in three years time with a very old team.
LESS TIME REMAINS THAN MIGHT BE THOUGHT
There is no guarantee that players on the top of their game now will still be in 2027. Willie le Roux surely doesn’t have more than another season of top rugby left in him, Siya Kolisi will be 36, Bongi Mbonambi will be 36, Faf de Klerk 36, Pieter-Steph du Toit 35 and so it goes on. You can expect a few of those players to still be the best, but it would defy logic and sports science if all of them were.
And it would also suggest a massive problem with the South African development system if there weren’t players who came through in the interim and were by 2027 better options than at least a clutch of the World Cup winners. Erasmus will be mindful of that and mindful of the reality that it is better to be forward thinking and pro-active than leave it to chance and have to make wholesale changes when it is too late and he is forced to do so.
While three years may sound like a long time, in international rugby terms it isn’t. Experience has to be built before 2027 starts. There are players who star at the global event who come through in a World Cup season, with the obvious example being Frans Steyn, who got his first taste of international rugby on the preceding year’s November tour. Manie Libbok and Herschel Jantjies are others.
But that’s not the trend and the hard yards have to be done in the preceding years. The Boks play 13 matches this year and the average number of games in an international season is 12. So let’s say there are 12 matches in each of the next two seasons - that makes it 37 games from the France World Cup to the start of the 2027 World Cup season.
NEED TO BUILD EXPERIENCE
If Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, for example, plays in every game, which he is highly unlikely to do with Handre Pollard and Manie Libbok still around and there are also injuries, that would put him on 37 caps by the start of 2027. Erasmus once said that a flyhalf would need at least around that number to be entrusted with the frontline pivot duties of a potential World Cup winning team.
And history bears him out - Jonny Wilkinson at 24 was the youngest World Cup winning flyhalf when he kicked the drop-goal that won the 2003 final for England. It’s not just Feinberg-Mngomezulu that needs to build international experience, but several other players who will potentially fill important positions in 2027.
Like Morne van den Bergh, the scrumhalf who plays his second game in Perth and makes his first start. Which does introduce the curve ball when it comes to any assumption that the changed up team will find it easy on Saturday and that we can just glibly assume that the Boks will win - there are several inexperienced combinations playing together.
The so-called spine of the team is made up mostly of relative newcomers - No 8, hooker, the halfbacks, fullback. It is a bit surprising maybe that Erasmus didn’t mix up the combinations more. And yet if you take a closer look, he hasn’t completely lost his marbles - fullback Aphelele Fassi has his regular back three partner at the Sharks, Makazole Mapimpi, alongside him, and Lukhanyo Am nearby.
The two young Bulls front-row forwards know each other. They are both Bulls. Indeed, there are five Bulls in the pack. And then there’s a bench brimming with World Cup winners and experience. Last week Feinberg-Mngomezulu and the Boks had a safety net in Pollard being on the bench, this time there’s a whole bench that has the ability to change the game for the team should it be necessary.
There are 14 World Cup winners in the match day 23, and Erasmus clearly thinks that is enough. And for all the changes made and the newcomers being given an opportunity, the Boks are still more experienced as a whole than the hosts are.
Erasmus and his players aren’t thinking of the possibility of defeat, but Erasmus will have recalled that the Bloemfontein game that went the other way in 2022 didn’t cost the team the series against Wales. They came back the following week with the full strength team and clinched it in Cape Town.
The coach will back his players to beat the All Blacks in the two home games should the unexpected happen in Perth and the Boks lose. The impact of defeat might be that, because of the inevitable reaction that there would be from South Africans to that result, he will have to rethink his selection strategy for the away match against Argentina on 21 September.
As it stands, the plan is for the Boks to go into that game with a similar team to Saturday’s. He might have to readjust slightly if it goes pear-shaped now. But as he says, he’s not smelling defeat, and if the Boks win well the positive is that winning with this team in an away test will be a massive juncture on the road to the World Cup and pave the way forward.
Teams
Australia: Tom Wright, Andrew Kellaway, Len Ikitau, Hunter Paisami, Marika Koroibete, Noah Loleiso, Nic White, Harry Wilson, Carlo Tizzano, Rob Vaentini, Lukhan Salakai- Loto, Angus Blyth, Allan Alaalatoa (captain), Josh Nasser, Angus Bell. Replacements: Billy Pollard, James Slipper, Zane Nonggorr, Tom Hooper, Sam Uru, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson, Max Jorgenson.
South Africa: Aphelele Fassi, Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morne van den Bergh, Elrigh Louw, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Salmaan Moerat (captain), Thomas du Toit, Johan Grobbelaar, Jan-Hendrik Wessels. Replacements: Malcolm Marx, Ox Nche, Vincent Koch, Eben Etzebeth, Kwagga Smith, Grant Williams, Manie Libbok, Handre Pollard.
Referee: Paul Williams (New Zealand)
Kick-off: 11.45 SA time
Prediction: Boks to win by 8