Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus said his staff are mindful of Malcolm Marx’s vulnerability and have worked to build depth.
“When you look at the way we have done things, we’ve given Andre-Hugo a chance, and he didn’t disappoint; we won that game against Portugal. So he is there.”
“We always have Bongi in the back of our minds and know when there are crunch games, we can press on his number.”
“We’ve got a few caps into Marnus, and he played against the All Blacks; he had one of the last turnover steals there.”
“We know that Malcolm can get injured at any time. We’ve got Jan-Hendrik who can play loosehead and hooker for us. So that’s five already.”
“And again, we are trying to stay in the present and win, but we also want to think about the future, about the 2027 World Cup.”
“These kinds of games build confidence for players to make another step up. And we’ve tried it with most of our players. There’s always first a Tier Two team, then maybe a team that ranks seventh or eighth in the world, and then maybe into a pressure cooker.
Explaining the inclusion of Johan Grobbelaar on the bench, Erasmus said, “And then onto the bigger stage, like the French. And with Johan Grobbelaar and having Gerhard and Wilco next to him, who he scrums with at the Bulls, and Ruan coming off the bench, he is pretty used to those guys as well.
“And he is 27, he is really fit, and he has done nothing to disappoint us. So maybe just get through this game, then we know we’ve got five or six hookers that we can bank on when we go to the World Cup.”