MARK KEOHANE | Boks blessed with hooker of Mbonambi's stature to step into the breach

Bongi Mbonambi plays his 64th Test against Ireland in Paris on Saturday night, and the Springboks will need at least 64 minutes of playing time from him.

Mbonambi is rated as one of the best hookers in the game and one of the best to have played for the Springboks, but his Test career has coincided with that of Malcolm Marx, which has been a blessing for the strength of the Boks, but also a personal curse in that Mbonambi’s game time has been restricted to an average of 32 minutes a Test match.

Marx, who started the Springboks' 2023 World Cup campaign against Scotland, played for 56 minutes in the 18-3 win. Mbonambi’s contribution was 24 minutes, and a week later he played the first half against Romania. His 64 playing minutes, over two matches, is consistent with his Test career playing time.

This will change against Ireland, given Marx’s World Cup has ended through a knee injury. It simply must.

It is especially important that Mbonambi’s match contribution goes beyond the hour because he is pivotal to so much that makes the Springboks’ set piece so strong.

Mbonambi’s character will relish the challenge of doubling up in the enforced absence of the mighty Marx, and the Boks are blessed to have a player of his quality to start against the number one ranked team in the world.

The Bok coaching duo of Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber this week refused to draft in a specialist hooker to replace Marx. Instead, the World Cup-winning starting No 10 Handré Pollard was flown to France.

Pollard was omitted from the original World Cup squad because he was still recovering from a nagging calf injury, but last Friday evening he played 31 minutes for Leicester Tigers, and that was enough to convince the Bok coaches that he was ready to make a World Cup contribution.

Specialist flankers Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden are the backup hookers. Fourie started his career as a hooker and Van Staden told the media that he had been training as a hooker and loose-forward because of the possibility of having to back up at hooker.

I have no doubt Fourie and Van Staden can do a backup job, but the key is that Mbonambi does the primary job for at least the opening hour.

Fourie and Van Staden played as second half substitutes against Romania in the 76-0 drubbing. They would have enjoyed the freedom of the occasion, which can’t be compared to the intensity of a match against Ireland.

Fourie and Van Staden are outstanding loose-forwards, who play to the ball and are globally acknowledged as two of the best in slowing down opposition ruck ball and winning turnovers on the ground.

Their versatility allows for them to be considered as hookers, but it is one thing to hit your jumpers on the training and pound the scrum machine; quite something else to do it with authority against a team ranked No 1 in the world, settled in every combination and unbeaten in 15 Test matches.

I have no doubt Fourie and Van Staden can do a backup job, but the key is that Mbonambi does the primary job for at least the opening hour.

Mbonambi, the 65th Springboks captain in leading South Africa against Argentina pre the World Cup and the first out the tunnel against Romania at the World Cup, is not short of confidence or self-belief.

He is an exceptional leader, and his strengths speak more to the traditional qualities of a starting hooker. He is known for his scrumming and line-out throwing accuracy, and while not as potent as Marx, Fourie and Van Staden over the ball at the breakdown, he should not be expected to fulfil this role.

Marx, as a hooker who is as good as any specialist fetcher, is the exception and not the rule. I likened his rugby presence to that of the incomparable South African cricketing all-rounder Jacques Kallis. You replace Kallis with two players, one who is among the best batsmen in the world and the other who is among the best bowlers in the world.

Marx has been replaced by Mbonambi, one of the best hookers, and by Fourie and Van Staden, two of the best fetcher-specialist flankers. 

Mbonambi, in the 2019 World Cup play-offs, started at hooker and Marx’s role was to provide impact in the second half.

Erasmus, the Boks head coach at the 2019 World Cup, described Mbonambi as the more physically brutal of the two players and applauded his “scrummaging in your face” approach. Erasmus felt that Mbonambi was best suited to start and Marx to finish.

He acknowledged he was spoilt for choice.

In the final, Mbonambi lasted just 20 minutes because of concussion, but Marx stepped up and played out the final 60 minutes.

In a twist of irony, it is now Mbonambi who must play out the first 60 minutes and be as influential for the Boks to get a World Cup winning result.