The Springboks appear to have averted a mini flyhalf crisis with the news that Damian Willemse now looks likely to take his place in the Rugby Championship opener against the Wallabies on July 8.
Willemse and regular flyhalf Handré Pollard have been consigned to the sidelines with injury as the Springboks started their preparations for the Rugby Championships, but the former now looks set to occupy the position he did when the team last played.
Willemse was the Springbok playmaker in their convincing 27-13 win over England at Twickenham last year, which turned out to be Eddie Jones’s last match in charge of the Red Roses.
Naturally director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and Bok coach Jacques Nienaber are hugely relieved to have Willemse running the backline show when they pit their coaching wits against Jones in his first Test back as Wallabies coach.
“There is a very good chance Damian will be cleared next week, which is great,” Erasmus said.
If Willemse is declared fit next week he should have enough time to get battle ready for the Wallabies, but the Boks may consider giving him more time to recuperate. Manie Libbok could start at 10 against the Wallabies, with Willemse off the bench in a potential six/two split. Willemse can then be deployed as a starter against the All Blacks in Auckland a week later.
The Boks now also have Elton Jantjies in camp after he joined on Sunday, while former Ireland lock Jean Kleyn is another recent arrival.
“The only flyhalf we had standing last week was Manie, but what a nice thing to have someone who’s played almost 50 Tests to fall back on if we need to,” Nienaber said about Jantjies.
Changing flyhalves won’t be the only amendments the Boks make to their starting team in the first two weeks of the competition. They will make wholesale changes in an attempt to reduce travel fatigue by the time they play the All Blacks on July 15.
The strategy of splitting their resources for battles across two continents on consecutive weekends is by no means a new phenomenon for the Boks.
In fact, in the first Test in the Erasmus/Nienaber era they sent a team comprising mostly young players to Washington to take on Wales, while a group of more experienced players remained behind to prepare for the Test against England a week later.
This time the bulk of the players who are not designated for duty against Australia in Pretoria will fly to New Zealand to start their preparation for the clash against the All Blacks in Auckland.
The Boks did the same with measured success when they drew with the All Blacks in Wellington in 2019.
Nienaber has stressed selecting vastly different teams in the first two rounds of the Rugby Championship does not translate to the existence of two tiers of Springbok team.
“We’ve made it clear it won’t be an A and B side, similar to what we did in 2019. If you look at the team that played against Australia then most people think it was an A and a B side. But Beast [Mtawarira], Bongi [Mbonambi], Eben [Etzebeth] and Pieter-Steph [du Toit] played that Test and they started the World Cup final. We will probably do the same.
“It will be a side we believe will be good enough to beat Australia at Loftus.”
Nienaber made the point that as the Wallabies are making changes under Jones it gives the Boks the opportunity to spend less time trying to figure out their opposition.
“It will be very difficult to say whether Australia will play with a greater Dave Rennie [former Wallabies coach] flavour or whether they’ll play with a Eddie Jones flavour. We will be focusing on ourselves.”
As for his team and how they’ll reduce their squad to 33, Nienaber opted to be opaque.
“We have an idea of what we would like to do. It’s too early to decide. There is still a lot of time before we can make decisions.”
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