Head coach Rassie Erasmus says there are two types of Springbok players and one of them the coaching team has decided not to select.
With four franchises in the United Rugby Championship and no restrictions on selecting players from overseas, Erasmus and his staff have no shortage of options when selecting a team. This was evidenced by the swollen 46-man squad preparing for the first game of the Nations Cup, named after the double header in which South Africa really showed off their depth.
SA’s A team beat Zimbabwe 40-0 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium before the Springboks thrashed the Barbarians 80-31 in the later opening match. The depth of the South African tournament is further highlighted by the fact that the Junior Boks won both of their opening matches at the Rugby World Junior Cup.
Rassie Erasmus: There are two types of Springboks.
Ahead of the 2026 international season, several Springboks players could reach milestones with Damian de Allende three matches away from 100 and Pieter-Steph du Toit five matches away. Malcolm Marks and Jesse Creel are 13 games behind that mark, while Handra Pollard and Franco Mostert need 15 and 16 games respectively.
With such a deep pool of talent and Erasmus rotating so regularly in his second stint as head coach, managers have time to make their selections, whether for Matchday 23 or the squad as a whole.
He believes there are two types of players in the Springboks system and while one of them stays, the other doesn’t.
“One of the things that we’ve definitely discussed outside of our team environment is that for a player chasing Test caps, unfortunately there is no place for him in our environment and that’s something we decided together,” he explained.
“The basic and simple reason is that there are two types of Springboks: those who will do anything to be in the team, and those who will do anything to make the team win. We prefer the latter.”
SA Rugby has responded to ‘erroneous and misinformed’ reports on ticket sales for the Springboks v England match
Springboks: Ox Nche expects England team to ‘get back on their feet’ after Ellis Genge admits ‘open wounds’
Why are young people invited to the camp?
Erasmus further elaborated that when it is difficult to separate two players into a particular position, coaches prefer to alternate their roles. He added that unfortunately they are limited to only 23 players per match.
The head coach further explained that if the next best player at a position is far from the best, then the coaching team prefers to look at younger players at those positions.
“If the player is really good enough, if we could pick 15 subs that would be great, but because we need to have three props, a hooker and then you can play with the sub,” he continued.
“If two players are very close to each other, we like to rotate. When two players are very close to each other, we like to put the best guys on the bench because they’re very close to the team. But if two players are very far apart, we try to bring young guys into the system or guys that we think can replace those guys and they’ll have to wait a little bit until they’re good enough to get an opportunity.”
“So it’s hard to deal with. I know three weeks ago we said, ‘Yeah, we’re in a crisis’. From our side, when are we going to give this guy a chance? When are you going to give this guy a chance? When is it fair to this guy? How close are these two guys to each other? And while we’re doing all that, we’ve got to try and beat England on Saturday. So it does get tough.”
READ MORE: Stephen Donald accuses French of ‘faking injuries’ as All Blacks find bench formula: ‘Forget Springboks bomber squad’