Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber said after naming his team for Saturday’s game against the Pumas that he is “80 per cent” certain that first choice flyhalf Handre Pollard won’t play again this season, which puts extra pressure on Damian Willemse.
Considered a fullback and utility back who can also play well at inside centre up until a few weeks ago, Willemse looks set for an extended run in the Bok No 10 if Nienaber is correct and Pollard is not available for the end of year tour.
Elton Jantjies’ early return from the Bok training camp ahead of Saturday’s penultimate Castle Lager Rugby Championship test against Argentina in Buenos Aires also places his future with the national team in considerable doubt. It may well have ruined his dream of going to next year’s Rugby World Cup in France, and it places extra pressure on Nienaber to shore up his flyhalf options.
The pivot position has been a problem area for the Boks for some time now. Morne Steyn, who kicked the winning penalty against the British and Irish Lions last year, has retired from international rugby, while the young flyhalves coming through in South Africa, such as the Emirates Lions’ Jordan Hendrikse, need time to develop.
There has been an acknowledgement among insiders in South African rugby that sometimes young flyhalves have been pushed too quickly. Curwin Bosch is an example. Perhaps if more work had been put into his defensive work and other areas of weakness before he was rushed into provincial rugby at the age of just 19, he might have had a better chance of fulfilling the rich potential he showed as a schoolboy flyhalf at the 2015 Craven Week in Stellenbosch.
Stormers coach John Dobson also admitted earlier this year that maybe he’d pushed Kade Wolhuter, who was one of national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus’ Players of National Interest (Poni players) coming out of lockdown, too fast. Wolhuter was just 19 years of age when he suffered a serious injury that kept him sidelined for nine months following a promising start to his franchise career.
A player who has been injured for the past while but is no longer young is Johan Goosen. First capped when not long out of school during Heyneke Meyer’s reign as Bok coach, Goosen disappeared overseas for a few years before returning to play for the Vodacom Bulls. Although Goosen played other positions when he was in France, he has been returned to the pivot position by the Pretoria franchise, and he did well there in the middle part of last year before suffering the injury playing in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship that has sidelined him for the best part of a year.
The good news is that Goosen, who was included in the Bok squad at the start of the international season, is not far away from playing again. According to the Bulls, every effort is being made to ensure that Goosen is properly ready and is not compromised by rushing him back too quickly, which is why it has taken so long for us to see him back on the field.
However, his return is now predicted to be just “two or three weeks away” and that should mean he will have enough opportunity in the URC to prove both his fitness and form ahead of the end of year tour that sees the Boks play Ireland, France, Italy and England in the space of four tough weeks.
A fit and ready Goosen will certainly ease one of Nienaber’s perennial headaches, one that no doubt has become more acute following the Pollard injury and the Jantjies infraction. In the meantime, though, Willemse is going to get plenty of opportunity to grow into the position and time will tell whether a more permanent return to the position he played as a schoolboy and in his age-group career is on the cards.
Certainly, his performance first up against Australia in Sydney was encouraging. He won the official man of the match award there. Frans Steyn is the man backing him up on the bench in the next two games in Buenos Aires and in Durban.