Schalk’s calming influence and pace key to Rassie’s decision

The calming influence he has on the younger players around him is what drove Rassie Erasmus to appoint Schalk Brits as his alternative captain at this World Cup, while his pace played a big role in the decision to play him at No 8.

Brits, normally a hooker, has been chosen to play off the back of the scrum in the Springboks’ second Pool B game against Namibia at Toyota Stadium on Saturday. As he did against Argentina in a warm-up game at Loftus a month and a half ago, he will lead the side.

“We have to rotate hookers and give rest to guys who are vital in big games,” said Erasmus after naming a team that features just two players in the starting team from the side that ran onto the field at the start of the All Black game last weekend.

“Siya (Kolisi) needs another 20 to 30 minutes to get him up to speed with his match fitness, so that's why we are playing him off the bench, and we needed to rest Duane and Pieter-Steph du Toit after last week. Obviously Bongi Mbonambi, the second hooker, has to get a chance to start even though he played off the bench against the All Blacks. Schalk covers a few things.

“The plan when I made him captain in that one game against Argentina we played back in South Africa was that he would bring a calming influence on what you could call the fringe players, and that is what he did. He does have that effect on them and hopefully that comes through against Namibia.

“Nambia are also a bit of an unknown factor to us. We obviously studied their build-up games to the World Cup, and their one game so far at the World Cup against Italy. We won’t have as many lineout options in this game (given the make-up of the back row), but if we do struggle we can bring Franco Mostert off the bench (Mostert has played flank before).

“What really influenced the selection though was that what we noticed about Namibia is that they are a team that really looks like they want to play and have a go and they really enjoy the game. So we need the pace to combat that and having Schalk and Kwagga Smith in the back row will give us what we require against these opponents. At the same time Bongi will get a chance to start and then Schalk will take over from him later in the game. He will cover hooker.”

Jesse Kriel is sitting out the Namibia game because of a hamstring strain but Erasmus described it as not serious.

“Jesse will be back in a week to 10 days. I am not sure I should even be describing his injury as a hamstring strain. He got a bump to the hamstring. So Lukhanyo Am, who has played a few successive games now, will play at outside centre,” said Erasmus.

The Bok coach said that the squad was proceeding with the pre-World Cup plan for the remainder of the Pool phase.

“We know that we will be favourites to beat Namibia and Canada. They are not natural wins in that you can just pitch up and play them and expect it to happen. You have to still do your analysis. But if we play to our potential we know we should expect to win. As you see though so far from this World Cup, you don’t get those really big 70 point wins anymore," said Erasmus.

“Namibia are our neighbours and will be very determined against us. They will come with a physical effort and be extremely motivated so it could be a bit messy. Obviously then the one game we really need to win is the one against Italy. With due respect to Namibia and to Canada, that is the team we have to beat to get into the play-offs.

“There were positives and negatives about playing the All Blacks so early in the World Cup. The positive was that if we won that game we would have gained a lot of confidence and it would have set us up for the rest of the World Cup campaign. The negative was that a loss would lose us some of our winning momentum. We did lose the game so now we need to get our momentum back so we can build our game and confidence for what hopefully will be a quarterfinal, semifinal and final.”