After a very poor showing in Super Rugby, there appears to be little hope, but I feel we can still field players in most positions that can match the best in the world.
One need just look at the scrum performances of the Stormers, which excludes our entire Springbok front row, to know that that area of the game is well sorted. With Etzebeth finding form and with PSDT, who should be recovering soon from injury and a number of other locks, even including Matfield, we are well covered in that position. We have loosies to burn, so we are covered there. Scrummies? Well, we have the talent, but getting the balance between form and experience right is the challenge. Based on form Faf De Klerk should walk into the team, but he has no international experience. Still, we have Hougard, Du Preez and one or two others that are pretty usefull. Pollard at 10 is just dandy. Habana at 11, is still a world class player, but the right wing spot still has some pretty big question marks over it! De Allande at 12 is great, but at 13 I hear crickets and in the distance a dog barking. At 15 Kriel and Le Roux pretty much take care of business.
I think our two big issues are depth, and some glaring problems in the backline. Depth wise, can you imagine, amongst others, a serious injury to Etzebeth, Habana, Pollard, De Allende. We would be left holding our collective peepees! As for the back line, we can certainly field a competitive backline, but we are deficient at 13 and 14. Which should not be a deal breaker, but against top teams like the AB's, one small deficiency equals a loss, so we need to be smart in filling the two gaps.
In a nutshell, we can field a pretty competitive team, that could even beat the AB's, though I wouldn't bet on it, even though we have some backline issues, but one or two injuries in critical positions, and we are going to have serious problems!
