Master plotter Rassie Erasmus will use the first four matches of the Springboks’ international season to mix and match his selections before moving on to the bigger fish that is the Rugby Championship, including two matches away to the All Blacks.
The Boks’ first block of matches is in South Africa against the Barbarians, Italy (twice) and Georgia.
Erasmus says he will introduce fresh blood in this match, reintroduce established Boks who have been out with injury, get his Japan-based players going after their break since the end of their season, and he will also continue with some of his aging players.
The Bok boss acknowledged that some of his World Cup winners are getting long in the tooth and won’t make it to Australia in 2027, but while they are still at the top of the game, he won’t discard them.
“Just because a player’s career will end in, say, 2026, and we are planning for the next World that doesn’t mean I have to take caps away from them,” Erasmus said.
“Yes, we do have an eye on the World Cup. However, as the saying goes: ‘If you look too far ahead, you forget about the present.’
“We are going into the season with the mindset of winning all the games while spreading our net wide, as we did last year. We are not going to stick to a small group of 25 to 27 players.”
In 2024, Erasmus used 50 players in winning 11 of the Boks’ 13 Tests, capping 12 new players.
So far this year, Erasmus has nine uncapped players in his 55-man squad although he will reduce the squad to 42 once he has seen if injuries occurred in the Bulls’ URC final against Leinster.
“We would like to do something similar to last year, where the senior players and some of the younger players all get to contribute on the field,” Erasmus said.
“Hopefully, when we get to the next World Cup, we have lots of players with 15 or more caps and not just one or two Tests.”
Erasmus said that the first week of the Bok training camp under way in Johannesburg has been productive.
“It has gone very well. A few of the younger players are still finding their feet, while the players who have been in the set-up in the last few years have been determined to show that they can maintain their form at this level.
“But we have to be careful about how we approach these first games,” he added. “The moment you say you’re going to play around a little bit with selection for the Barbarians, you give the wrong message.
“That’s why we want to pick up a pretty strong team. It’s not a Test match, but it’s going to be an excellent spectacle, I believe. I’m not sure what the weather in Cape Town will be like, but the game will definitely be of Test-match intensity, with a lot of pressure.”
Next up is two Tests against Italy, in Tshwane on June 6 and Gqebertha a week later.
“Everybody’s expecting us just to beat Italy. But they were really competitive in the first two rounds of the Six Nations and then they ran a little bit low on player depth because they don’t have a hell of a lot of players. However, they only play two Test matches against us, so they should be at full strength for the series.
“Italy will be very physical and gutsy on defence, so we can’t not perform.
“And then we’ve got the Georgia game. Everyone knows the Georgians are one of the toughest teams in the world from a physicality point of view. If you take them up lightly up front, then the whole game becomes a mess.
“These four games give us an opportunity to try things but at the same time we will not mess around against these teams. Strategically, I have good plans in place to see how many players we can try while brining back some old guys like Lood de Jager, who hasn’t been with us for a while because of injury.”
