Rassie Erasmus made no secret at a media information session earlier this year of his concern over the Springbok lock resources building up to next year’s Rugby World Cup and in a weird way fate may me conspiring to help him redress that.
Of course the initial warning signals flickered when during the club season several top Boks were out injured, with the loss of RG Snyman for the rest of the season following on from a long term injury that was keeping Lood de Jager from his club.
When the Bok coach was talking back in March the DHL Stormers’ Salmaan Moerat was also sidelined, as was Pieter-Steph du Toit, who although he’s primarily a blindside flank is also a world class second row forward when pressed into that role. Plus at that time Eben Etzebeth, South Africa’s most capped international player, was still serving his suspension and was quickly injured again once he returned to the field for the Hollywoodbets Sharks.
The lock situation prompted Erasmus to talk about possible recruits from the expat community of South African rugby players playing overseas. Jean Kleyn played for the Boks at the last World Cup out of Munster (he’s at Gloucester from next season) and Erasmus mentioned an interest in the England based former Sharks lock JJ van der Mescht, while Toulon captain David Ribbans, a former Western Province player who has represented England, is expected to be available for the Boks in the World Cup year as by then enough time would have elapsed since his last England appearance.
There was an upswing in the mood around lock when Erasmus named his extended squad, sans Vodacom Bulls representatives, for this week’s Bok and SA A games against the Barbarians and Zimbabwe respectively in Gqeberha. Etzebeth was back and according to Erasmus in a press conference last week also fit and ready to go, so was De Jager, who’d returned to the field in Japan. Du Toit is also with the squad, as was the at that staged fully recovered Moerat, and with Ruan Nortje and Cobus Wiese expected to bolster the stocks further once the URC Grand Final is over, suddenly it looked like far from there being a shortage the squad was overflowing with locks.
But since this time last week Ruben van Heerden was added to the group as a replacement for Moerat, who will be out for some time to nurse yet another injury, and then on Sunday Van Heerden’s Stormers second row partner Adre Smith was called up as an additional reinforcement.
That call seems to indicate that there are injury concerns in the Bok second row ranks, but then creating the depth to help minimise the impact of injuries is precisely what a game like Saturday’s at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium has been scheduled to do.
Smith and Van Heerden may not be needed next week when the Bok focus shifts to the arrival of England and the eagerly anticipated clash with the Six Nations team at Ellis Park on 4 July, but being part of training this week and any involvement in either game at the weekend will at least have introduced them to the Bok set-up.
Van Heerden was in the opposition ranks last year when the Barbarians played in Cape Town and would not look out of place if in an emergency he is called up to play a role in Gqeberha. Although it is a pity that JD Schickerling is injured. Schickerling is arguably the best lock on the Stormers books and the most influential and is the player who has long been overdue for a call to the national squad. He went on the 2018 Springbok end of year tour but never played and so was never capped.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium line-up for Saturday
South Africa A v Zimbabwe (Kick-off 12 noon)
Springboks v Barbarians (Kick-off 15.00)
Both games will be covered live on the Supersport channels