Rassie Erasmus’s match 23 for Saturday’s Test against Italy is more about reward and trust in the quality of squad players than it is about risk.
Erasmus has picked just four of the starting XV from the epic win against the French in Paris, but crucially seven of the eight super substitutes remain from last Saturday evening’s glory at the Stade de France. The other starts in hooker Johan Grobbelaar.
Damian Willemse gets another opportunity as a starting fifteen and loosehead prop Boan Venter, who was given just the first 31 minutes to experience the intensity of the cauldron of a Test match that physically matched any World Cup play-off, albeit not mentally because there is no replica for a World Cup play-off where if you lose you go home.
Win or lose in Paris, the Boks’ tour was always going to continue.
These November Test matches are about creating opportunities, exposing players to stressful situations and growing individual experience. It also allows coach Rassie Erasmus the chance to try new combinations, mix and match combinations and explore player versatility.
Marco van Staden is a player whose versatility can make him invaluable to the squad in the lead-in to the 2027 Rugby World Cup, when the Boks will aim for an unprecedented three successive titles.
The All Blacks of 2011 and 2015 won both those World Cups but lost in the semi-final in 2019 to England and had to settle for bronze. Four years later they lost by a point (12-11) to the Boks in a dramatic final in Paris.
The margins between two successive World Cup titles and a potential four are not as big as some would think.
These November Test matches are about creating opportunities, exposing players to stressful situations and growing individual experience. It also allows coach Rassie Erasmus the chance to try new combinations, mix and match combinations and explore player versatility.
Erasmus has never been shy to reward talent, be it on debut or for a player with more than 100 Tests. Equally, he has not blinked in yanking Springbok rugby’s most capped player, as he did with Eben Etzebeth in Paris in the 47th minute.
It is the potency of the bench that gives those younger starting players comfort.
Zac Porthen starts his second Test at tighthead, having in his debut against Japan a fortnight ago been the youngest starting tighthead for the Springboks in the professional age. Knowing the scrum king Wilco Louw is on the bench as cover is the greatest support crutch for Porthen.
Jean Kleyn and Franco Mostert are World Cup winners. They start as a lock combination and their replacements are RG Snyman and Ruan Nortje. There is no Etzebeth or Pieter-Steph du Toit, and Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat was not considered for the tour because of injury. Bulls lock Cobus Wiese is another not picked at the moment.
No nation has such luxuries or talent at lock.
Equally, among the loose-forwards. Cameron Hanekom is injured, Evan Roos is a standby player and Jasper Wiese is rested. In their No 8 absence, Erasmus has started with van Staden, a specialist fetcher, who has doubled as a hooker and now as a No 8.
That is some depth, when you consider Boks captain Siya Kolisi, starting at No 6, has this season started at No 8 for the Boks, and started several matches for the Sharks at No 8, and Kwagga Smith, among the power bomb squad, has also started at No 8.
Ben-Jason Dixon gets a first start in a year for the Boks in the revered No 7 jersey that Du Toit has made his own in the past eight years, and among the backs the biggest talking point is the selection of Ethan Hooker and Canan Moodie in the midfield.
Both have started their international careers on the wing, and both have been electric.
Hooker is 21 and Moodie is 23. If they do gel, the future of the Springboks’ midfield will have the authority of Jean de Villiers and Jacque Fourie and Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel and De Allende and Lukhanyo Am.
Both playing squads are significantly different to the match-day players in the most recent 45-0 Boks win in South Africa, and Erasmus, in his third Test against Italy this season, would have chosen three very different squads for each Test.
For some that may be a risk, but for him it is a reward to his depth and an opportunity for the next player to make a winning statement.
Oh, and these days, no Boks preview is complete without the mention of Andre the Giant Esterhuizen, professional Test rugby’s first fully-fledged backs and forwards hybrid player.
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