What Cobus Reinach makes of rookie No10, No8 Springboks starters

Experienced Springboks scrum-half Cobus Reinach has shared his thoughts on having Test-level rookies on either side of him on the Suncorp Stadium pitch this Saturday versus Australia. South Africa open their 2024 Rugby Championship campaign away to the Wallabies in Brisbane and Rassie Erasmus has selected fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and No8 Elrigh Louw for their first international starts.  

Both newcomers have just four caps each off the bench coming into the tournament opener compared to the more seasoned Reinach, who has 33 caps and was a starter in the 2023 Rugby World Cup semi-final against England. 

He debuted for his country in the 2014 Rugby Championship and this decade-long experience left the Montpellier player sounding confident about the prospect of having a rookie Stormers No10 and a rookie Bulls No8 with him in the eight-nine-10 Test combination this weekend.    

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“I haven’t played with him as nine and 10 but the whole week he showed he has got a rugby head on him,” said Reinach about Feinberg-Mngomezulu at a Wednesday media session in Australia. “He is a young boy, but he is hugely talented and I am really excited for him to go out there.  

“He has got the backing of the 22 other players and the rest of the squad here to just go out there and express himself and enjoy the moment. He is going to do well. There is a lot of X-factor in him. He is going to pull a few strings and create a few opportunities.” 

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What about Louw? “The combinations, we are all good mates and we are a great family here so we sit and talk. Me and Elrigh just went out for coffee. The combination on the field gels quickly.  

“It can gel in a week, it can gel in a day the way we train and the way we rotate the squad. I just tell him he needs to put his head down and scrum the opportunities we get to scrum so Ox (Nche) can have his cake. That’s his main job from the start.” 

This year’s Rugby Championship is going ahead with a number of law variations. Among them is the allowance for greater protection of the nine at the base of the scrum, ruck and maul. The rationale behind the potential penalty sanctions is to allow the scrum-half, or the player in that role, to play the ball away cleanly from the phase of play without disruption. 

“We’ll find out on the weekend how that law change will affect us,” said Reinach, this Saturday’s Springboks No9. ‘It’s cleaning up the game around the ruck a little bit which will allow our nines to get out one or two steps and attack the line before we choose our option.  

“But in some games, you don’t want to run so it doesn’t really matter. It’s just how you plan for that week, how you want to attack what exactly we want to do. I’m excited to see how quickly we can get the ball away there.”