Auditions open for props as Boks lose World Cup leading men

The anniversary week of the Springboks' latest Rugby World Cup success marked the temporary loss of another warrior from that campaign.

The Boks will now have to embark on their end of year tour to the UK without the props who started last year's final against the All Blacks after Frans Malherbe joined Steven Kitshoff on the sidelines. Malherbe injured an ankle while playing for the Stormers against Glasgow Warriors in Stellenbosch in the United Rugby Championship last Saturday, while Kitshoff has been sidelined for some time with a neck ligament injury. No publicised date has been set for his return.

Kitshoff and Malherbe had developed into the Old Firm up front for the Springboks but the former has had his Test career grind to a halt this year.

The Boks have won 19 of the 27 Tests in which they started together. In their last 14 Tests as a starting combination the Boks have lost just three for a near 80% success rate in that period.

Though they were provincial teammates at Western Province and the Stormers they took a while before 'finding' each other at Test level.

Kitshoff served an 18-match Bok apprenticeship off the bench before he earned a start in the narrow defeat against New Zealand at Newlands in 2017.

He had starting partners in Ruan Dreyer and Wilco Louw before he was in the run-on team with his long-time provincial teammate in September 2018.

Kitshoff has played in 83 Tests and would have been into the 90s had injury not reared its ugly head this year.

In his absence Malherbe has struck up an equally formidable partnership with Ox Nche, with the Boks winning eight of the 12 Tests in which they started. In the last six they've started the Boks have run out winners on five occasions.

Nche has a burgeoning presence in the No 1 jersey. He has emerged as one of the game's most destructive scrummagers while his industry in the tight loose has won admirers.

Nche, who waited three years between his first and his second Test, hit the deck running once he was restored to the team. Unlike Kitshoff, he was used as a starter from the outset and more often than not it is his scrummaging that helps set the tone of the match before the Bomb Squad concludes the demolition.

There is no doubt the Boks will be poorer for it without their World Cup starting props, but in Nche and Vincent Koch they have players who will continue getting the World Cup holders onto the front foot, while Thomas du Toit, Gerhard Steenekamp and Louw are all tugging at the leash for more opportunity to express themselves.

The Boks will have to come to terms with life without Kitshoff and Malherbe, for now. Bok coach Rassie Erasmus has been on a drive to widen his player pool this season and by deploying 49 so far this year he has reached that objective.

Not having the Old Firm present gives him the opportunity to present the ones standing with more game time.

For a player like Koch, who has existed in the shadows for much of his 58 Tests, this is the opportunity to step forward as the leading front ranker. Koch has quietly gone about his job with effortless efficiency. The Boks will need that, and more.

The coaching staff appear content with what they have on tour, so much so that when Malherbe was ruled out Erasmus called up Sharks' flyhalf Jordan Hendrikse.

The coach made the point should the team suffer more blows on the injury front, replenishing the squad should be a straightforward exercise.

“With the UK and SA being in similar time zones it would be simple to call up another prop should the need arise during the tour.”

At some point the Boks would have had to engineer contingencies for when Kitshoff and Malherbe are no longer around. This tour will reveal if they are ready for life without the Old Firm.