The Bulls loose forward could find himself in the front row if needed against Italy.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said that they are hoping to reap the same benefits they have achieved from their hybrid star André Esterhuizen, with loose forward Marco van Staden, who is the team’s back-up hooker for their clash against Italy in Turin this weekend.
The Boks have essentially gone all-in on Johan Grobbelaar, who is their only specialist hooker in the match 23 for Saturday’s match, despite having only five international caps to his name, and this is thus a huge chance for him to prove that he has what it takes to be Malcolm Marx’s back-up going forward.
Marx has been the Boks’ biggest mainstay this season, playing in every one of their matches, bar their clash against Georgia in Mbombela in July, but has now been given a deserved break.
It seems Grobbelaar is being backed to go the full 80 minutes, while Van Staden, who has been named as the starting eighthman — a new position for him — will shift into the front row if there is an injury or Erasmus decides to replace the Bulls hooker.
Van Staden isn’t a stranger to the position, as he was the Boks’ second back-up hooker at the World Cup in France in 2023, with Marx and Bongi Mbonambi the first-choice players, and fellow loose forward and former hooker Deon Fourie as the first back-up.
Marx injury
When Marx was injured in training after just one World Cup pool match against Scotland, the Boks chose to rather call Handré Pollard into the squad, which meant Mbonambi and Fourie covered the hooking duties over the rest of the competition, with Van Staden the back-up.
The Bulls man got a run in the position in the pool match against Tonga, coming on in the 59th minute and acquitting himself well over the rest of that game.
He may now get another chance against Italy on Saturday.
“We have Marco covering hooker. He is our starting eighthman, but he is our hooker cover, where he has been (in training) over the last five years. Even at the last World Cup he played hooker against Tonga,” said Erasmus at the team announcement conference on Thursday.
“So, like we have done with André (who has swapped between flank and centre this season), we are trying to turn him into a player who can play in the loose and cover the front row. But we want to slowly build him up into that role.
“So I think Marco is in a position where if he gets through a few minutes of this Italy Test match at hooker, that will be another box ticked for us.
“But it might backfire totally on us, and then we will know that it doesn’t work and we will have to make other plans.”
The match in Turin on Saturday kicks off at 2.40pm.
