Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus selected 20-year-old Riley Norton over the more experienced JJ van der Mescht for the Nations Championship squad because Norton's highly athletic, lineout-contesting profile explicitly matches the team's current tactical requirements.
While acknowledging Van der Mescht's immense talent, Erasmus clarified that the decision was purely down to a specific tactical fit rather than a reflection of individual player form.
“This is not the platform to go into the strengths and weaknesses of players,” the Springboks boss explained when fronting the media on Tuesday.
“Obviously, our interactions with JJ were virtual, or contacting the club and monitoring his stats and those kinds of things, but Riley is totally different; he’s in our system.
“He went through our junior structures like JJ did, but JJ has been away for a really long time. At the end of the day, we look at what we need in the team.”
“Norton is a line-out caller, very athletic around the park, and Van der Mescht is a bruiser who plays very direct. It depends on what you need for a certain Test match, and we all think JJ is a wonderful player, and it’s not to say that JJ is not going to play for us in the future, but what we feel we need at this stage is probably more what Riley gives us.”
“If you look at where we have injuries, if you look at RG, you will think that JJ is the immediate good replacement for that, but in the team, there are some other guys like Cobus Wiese and many guys like Jasper who can even scrum at number four if you want.”
“We just felt we don’t want to get somebody in that we don’t utilise. So hopefully in the future we do need somebody like that and press on his number and get him into the squad, but it’s totally two different types of players and Riley is obviously somebody that knows our systems really well because he comes through our structures.”