The All Blacks will host the Springboks in the first of two Rugby Championship Tests in New Zealand this Saturday.
Who will play fullback, flyhalf, scrumhalf and No 8?
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus will on Thursday reveal his matchday-23 for Saturday’s Rugby Championship Test against the All Blacks at Eden Park in Auckland and it is who is picked in these four key positions mentioned above that is generating much interest.
Added to this, who will be the team’s back-up hooker now that it has been revealed that the experienced Bongi Mbonambi never boarded the plane to New Zealand with his team-mates last week?
According to SA Rugby, the hooker remained at home in South Africa to “attend to family matters”.
Malcom Marx will possibly start in the No 2 jersey at Eden Park, but will his back-up man be the inexperienced Marnus van der Merwe or Jan-Hendrik Wessels, who also covers prop? Neither has much Test experience.
Key calls in these positions
Regarding the other four positions mentioned here, Erasmus will keep South African rugby fans, as well as the All Blacks, guessing until Thursday when he names his team for Saturday’s match. It is a move away from the coach’s regular Tuesday team announcement.
At fullback, Willie le Roux was supposed to start the Boks’ last Test against Australia, but pulled out on the eve of the match with a niggle, paving the way for Aphelele Fassi to take over the No 15 jersey. Will it be the more experienced Le Roux this weekend, or the dynamic Fassi again, or will Erasmus turn to Damian Willemse?
Handré Pollard was one of the Boks’ biggest stars in their win over Australia in Cape Town just over a week ago and is the likely choice to wear the No 10 jersey at Eden Park, but Manie Libbok remains the team’s biggest attacking threat at flyhalf while Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is also an option.
Meanwhile, the scrumhalf position has all of a sudden become an interesting one because the Boks announced on Sunday that 33-year-old Faf de Klerk was on his way to New Zaland to join the team as “additional cover in a key position”.
Is one of the current scrumhalves in the squad – Grant Williams, Cobus Reinach and Morne van den Berg – sick or injured, and could this mean that De Klerk makes a surprise return to the squad at Eden Park? Or will he only be considered for the Wellington game next week?
Finally, who’ll start at No 8?
Captain Siya Kolisi, who has played eighthman already this season, has been nursing a niggle and Jean-Luc du Preez was slated to start in Cape Town before illness ruled him out on the day of the match. Kwagga Smith took Du Preez’s place and played well against the Wallabies in Cape Town, so it’s anyone’s guess what Erasmus will do.
First-choice eighthman, Jasper Wiese, is still suspended and will only be available for the Test next week in Wellington.
Other key positions
There are, however, also question marks round the one wing position, the makeup of the back-row and second row, and who’ll pack down at tighthead prop.
With Kurt-Lee Arendse and Edwill van der Merwe out with injuries, will the one wing position be taken up by Canan Moodie or Makazole Mapimpi, or someone else like Ethan Hooker, or one of the utility backs like Willemse, Fassi or even Jesse Kriel?
Erasmus has changed his back-row and locks throughout the season so far, so no one quite knows what he’ll do this week, while one of Wilco Louw, Thomas du Toit and Vincent Koch will start in the No 3 jersey, but again, only Erasmus right now knows who that will be.
