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The 3 rookies who must start for the Springboks from now on

Aphelele Fassi of South Africa celebrates after scoring a try with teammates during the the Rugby Championship 2024 match between Argentina Pumas and South Africa Springboks at Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades on September 21, 2024 in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. (Photo by Rodrigo Valle/Getty Images)

In a year that has been dubbed a “rebirth” for South Africa, head coach Rassie Erasmus has not been afraid of some experimentation.

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The world champions have welcomed a new coaching set-up, a new style and have seen plenty of new faces join the fold so far in their ten matches in 2024.

Indeed, Erasmus himself even pointed this out on X after securing The Rugby Championship title on Saturday with a 48-7 victory over Argentina, saying they will “benefit in the long run” from using 49 players this year.

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Some players have taken their chance this year, some have not, but the Boks Office team have listed the three players that have to play for the Springboks from now on after breakout seasons.

Host Hanyani Shimange opened with lock Ruan Nortje, who has returned to the Springboks squad this season after winning a solitary cap in 2022.

There is no denying that the 26-year-old has been the beneficiary of an extensive injury list in the second-row department, but he still needed to take his chance, which Shimange believes he did.

“For me it’s Ruan Nortje [who commands a starting position]. “He slotted in seamlessly, his work rate, controls the lineout. Obviously there are guys that are injured that will come back in the mix.

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“For me, what he has shown now, he’s slotted in now, you want that hard-working guy, he’s got the good skills with the ball, maybe not the most abrasive carrier – that’s probably the work-on – but for a guy that’s come in, he’s slotted in brilliantly.”

Jean de Villiers added two players to the list, fullback Aphelele Fassi and fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, although the latter has been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury.

Like Nortje, Fassi was brought in from the cold this year after missing the 2023 World Cup, and has enjoyed a “rebirth”.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu, conversely, is the only one to have made his debut in 2024, coming off the bench in the Boks’ 41-13 victory over Wales at Twickenham and made huge strides on the Test scene during The Rugby Championship before his knee injury ended his season.

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“It’s difficult not to select [Fassi] now,” de Villiers said. “But there’s tough competition there with Willie [le Roux] and Damian [Willemse] coming back.

“Sacha is part of the conversation at fly-half.

“I think we’re in a situation now where you can pick and choose depending on the game and who you’re playing against. So conditions, who you are playing against, what does your pack look like etc. and then you select accordingly. With Fassi that’s the case, with Sacha that’s the case as well.”

Boks Office guest Deon Fourie said that wingers Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse cannot be overlooked despite a host of players nipping at their heels.

De Villiers replied: “You’ve still got Edwill [van der Merwe], you’ve still got [Makazole] Mapimpi who played so well every time he got the opportunity this year, you’ve still got Canan Moodie, you’ve got Kurt-Lee and Cheslin, Fassi can slot in on the wing as well, so the depth that we have is just next level.”

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Comments

3 Comments
S
SteveD 183 days ago

Nortje seems to have learnt the lineout calls, so that's good.


Sacha has learnt to maybe be a bit more humble rather than thinking he was so special he should play while injured and potentially let the team down, so that's good.


Fassi still needs to realise in the more difficult games that while he's done very well up to then there comes a point (twice in recent games, although the last one wasn't probably so important) where it's better not to do stupid touch kicks that put the team at risk. It'll be good when he learns that.

f
fl 184 days ago

hard to disagree with these three.

S
SM 184 days ago

Having a full time SA A team will solve a lot of issues

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f
fl 29 minutes ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

“He won a ECL and a domestic treble at the beginning of his career.”

He won 2 ECLs at the beginning of his career (2009, 2011). Since then he’s won 1 in 15 years.


“He then won 3 leagues on the bounce later in his career”

He won 3 leagues on the bounce at the start of his career too - (2009, 2010, 2011).


If we’re judging him by champions league wins, he peaked in his late 30s, early 40s. If we’re judging him by domestic titles he’s stayed pretty consistent over his career. If we’re judging him by overall win rate he peaked at Bayern, and was better at Barcelona than at City. So no, he hasn’t gotten better by every measure.


“You mentioned coaches were older around the mid-2010’s compared to the mid-2000’s. Robson was well above the average age you’ve given for those periods even in the 90’s when in his pomp.”

Robson was 63-64 when he was at Barcelona, so he wasn’t very old. But yeah, he was slightly above the average age of 60 I gave for the top 4 premier league coaches in 2015, and quite a bit above the averages for 2005 and 2025.


“Also, comparing coaches - and their experiences, achievements - at different ages is unstable. It’s not a valid way to compare and tends to torpedo your own logic when you do compare them on equal terms. I can see why you don’t like doing it.”

Well my logic certainly hasn’t been torpedoed. Currently the most successful premier league coaches right now are younger than they were ten years ago. You can throw all the nuance at it that you want, but that fact won’t change. It’s not even clear what comparing managers “on equal terms” would even mean, or why it would be relevant to anything I’ve said.


“You still haven’t answered why Kiss could be a risker appointment?”

Because I’ve been talking to you about football managers. If you want to change the subject then great - I care a lot more about rugby than I do football.

But wrt Kiss, I don’t agree that 25 years experience is actually that useful, given what a different sport rugby was 25 years ago. Obviously in theory more experience can never be a bad thing, but I think 10 years of coaching experience is actually more than enough these days. Erasmus had been a coach for 13 years when he got the SA top job. Andy Farrell had been a coach for 9 when he got the Ireland job. I don’t think anyone would say that either of them were lacking in experience.


Now - what about coaches who do have 25+ years experience? The clearest example of that would be Eddie Jones, who started coaching 31 years ago. He did pretty well everywhere he worked until around 2021 (when he was 61), when results with England hit a sharp decline. He similarly oversaw a terrible run with Australia, and currently isn’t doing a great job with Japan.

Another example is Warren Gatland, who also started coaching full-time 31 years ago, after 5 years as a player-coach. Gatland did pretty well everywhere he went until 2020 (when he was 56), when he did a relatively poor job with the Chiefs, before doing a pretty poor job with the Lions, and then overseeing a genuine disaster with Wales. There are very few other examples, as most coaches retire or step back into lesser roles when they enter their 60s. Mick Byrne actually has 34 years experience in coaching (but only 23 years coaching in rugby) and at 66 he’s the oldest coach of a top 10 side, and he’s actually doing really well. He goes to show that you can continue to be a good coach well into your 60s, but he seems like an outlier.


So the point is - right now, Les Kiss looks like a pretty reliable option, but 5 years ago so did Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland before they went on to prove that coaches often decline as they get older. If Australia want Kiss as a short term appointment to take over after Schmidt leaves in the summer, I don’t think that would be a terrible idea - but NB wanted Kiss as a long term appointment starting in 2027! That’s a massive risk, given the chance that his aptitude will begin to decline.


Its kind of analagous to how players decline. We know (for example) that a fly-half can still be world class at 38, but we also know that most fly-halves peak in their mid-to-late 20s, so it is generally considered a risk to build your game plan around someone much older than that.

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NB 2 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

https://www.london.edu/think/how-claudio-ranieri-transformed-leicester-city


He jts knew how to use that deep well of knowledge accumulate over many years of management. A true Moneyball story!

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f
fl 3 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

“Two comparable achievements 15 years apart (at different clubs in different leagues) represent failure and not continued success for an elite level coach/manager? Not even a hint of consistency? Just gradual, inevitable decline? And all because he is in his sixth decade?”

Why don’t you try reading what I wrote before you start inventing a load of other random things that I didn’t say. I said “Pep hasn’t gotten better with age”. He hasn’t. I don’t think he’s got much worse, and yeah, he’s been fairly consistent over his career and has had more success than almost any other coach. But he hasn’t gotten better.


“You’ve missed that Mourinho’s early start in football was as a translator for Bobby Robson (ironically a much older manager at the time!).”

I was actually aware of that. I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t relevant to the fact that Mourinho - aged 52 - had more experience than Arteta does at 43. It also isn’t ironic that Bobby Robson was a much older manager at the time - it actually confirms by point that a lot of the top football managers used to be older than they are today.


“You suggested that Les Kiss would not be suited to an international coaching role because of his age profile…that seemed to relate to rugby”

That did relate to rugby. Let me walk you through the thread…


NB suggested that Les Kiss should become Australia head coach in 2027.

I said: “Given the drop off so many top coaches seem to experience as they get older (e.g. Jones, Gatland) Kiss could be a riskier appointment than you’d think!”

NB said: “Drawing a parallel with the NFL and NBA, plenty of coaches stay well into their 70’s”

I said: “Not all sports are going the same way though” then gave the example of football.


The example of football was introduced in order to make the point that the age profile of managers is not the same in every sport. If you had read the thread you were replying to you would know this!

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