Players I’d like to see brought into the fold

Werner Kok

Everyone overlooks him.

Ruan Botha for mine

He was a part of Rassie's bigger squad if I'm not mistaken. A physical brute with a high work rate.

Can't say I remember that bit, must admit I haven't seen a great deal of him but what I did see was impressive....world-class to be exact.

Nope, no test cap. Don't like the sound of him playing for London Irish, at 6'8" and 124kgs Ireland I suspect would be licking their chops....goodbye South Africa.

The tendency after WCs is to say  player X, let's say Vermeulen, wont make it to the next WC, so lets move on. Pretty soon Willie, the Beast, Louw and Vermeulen are gone, and the team dynamic changes. We imploded in the year after the 2007 and 1995 WCs and if we are not careful we will implode again.

We should try to keep the team together and evolve it over time, rather than starting from scratch. We were worthy winners of the WC, but the ABs remain the world brand. For the Boks to supplant them we need to kick  on, beat the ABs in 2020 and evolve the more nuanced game plan we showed in the final.

But we can't afford to lose what we have....primarily our WC winning defence and superior physicality. We tried to change the model to 'expansive rugby' in 2016....and we never got back in balance till 2019. Sure we ca n do more offloading, more creative  centre play.....but as gradual additions. Not instead of what we  did in the final.

Most of the players in the list could integrate into our playing style....but I doubt Papier and Bosch are good fits. And I'm not enthusiastic about Vorster, Steppie and the Deysel twins.

"We should try to keep the team together and evolve it over time, rather than starting from scratch."

Agreed. You can't discard the marrow that lives within the bone. A whole new bunch is not the way to go.

Ruan Botha is good, I thought you meant the Stormers centre that play's 7's.

However, lock is the worst position to compete for the Boks team. A long time ago it was loose forward, but nowadays there is locks to burn.

Tyrone Green looks like a livewire 

Were the Lions more successful last year then his name may have gotten a mention above. 

Roelof Smit would be my like for like swap with Louw.

Dave I mentioned a few players elsewhere and stay with those.   I think especially of two players that is seriously better than players like Bosch and Gelant and those are Muller du Plessis at wing/full back (presently playing for the Sevens and a miracle flyhalf in Chait coming through from the Varsity Cup.   I have never seen a flyhalf like him for years.  None of you apparently saw any of those two playing.

Muller du Plessis did better in sevens than Kolbe did and the guy has serious pace and I think that anybody scoring three tries in one sevens game against Fiji has serious potential.   He was to play in last years Under 20 - but was injured early after scoring a very good try in a match.   Can you imagine that he run down a  Fijian player who was in the clear 50 meter out and he caught and tackled him just inside on the 22 meter line after giving the Fijian at least a 10 meters start.   Serious pace that one.

Since the early days of Pollard I have not seen a quality flyhalf like Chait coming through in SA.  That guy is what I would say a top class flyhalf  - if you can get hold of the Maties Varsity Cup games have a look at that one.  I do think that any franchise getting hold of this guy to play Super Rugby will have an ace up their sleeve.

By the way another question?   I reckon that in a way I agree on some points with Mozart, but not entirely about bombing after the 2007 WC.   SA had a rather indifferent  3 nations - losing two games against NZ and winning 1 in 2008 and 1 loss and i huge win against Australia.  All the other games played the Springboks won by massive margins and those include Wales and England.   The collapse came in 2010 and that was a bad sign for the 2011 WC.   

Mozart is right about the 29 year olds and older players in the WC winning squad,  I am not particularly worried about one of the four players he mentioned - Louw's contribution to the WC was minimal.   Beast and Vermeulen were good - but there will always be need for replacements after any WC.   Willie may last through to the 2023  WC.   The other 29 year olds include Jantjies, Mostert and  Reinach.  None of those three really played a key role in the WC that would be irreplaceable in future.   Matter of fact other than Reinach - the other two have better players already in evidence.

Where I do not agree with him is about the AB's - they had not overwhelmed SA in any game over the last two years and have their own replacement problems.   One should never consider the bronze play-off match results seriously,   The teams in that game use players that was more often than not used to play in the minion games or as back-up players in the WC series and in both 2015 and 2019 the teams playing would never be the competitive  sides  in the WC proper.   There was question marks as to the value of the Bronze final and some thinks it is nothing more than a show game and extra income for the country hosting the WC. 

I still rate the AB's very highly - but will not say they are the world brand at present.   If the AB's was in the WC final - I believe the game the Springboks played on Saturday would have   . had a very similar result to what happened against England.   Sure there will be a need to maintain standards - but I think we have a better chance than after previous WC's to do so.   In the case of the 2007 team the elderly players did quite well in 2008 and 2009 - but by 2010 the gas ran out of them.   There were too few of those in 2019 to make a serious difference like happened following the 2007 WC.                      

Plum

I forgot about Tyrone Green and I think he should be added to the list of potential future players,  I also like Roelof Smit - but in fact prefer that loosie Coetzee of the Stormers to him.

In a way I am glad about the departure of so many of the WC squad to play rugby in future for NH clubs - fact is some players improve markedly when they go because they get coached by very good coaches in many clubs.  I think that the benefit is that it opens up new  opportunities for youngsters coming through the mill.

It is very likely that Erasmus as Director of Rugby have  this development program as a key issue and am sure there will be a number of future stars  by 2021-22 that would by 2023 have enough experience to compete in the WC.