ouMaaik has a hate ... hee hi hee hi ho :)
ouMaaik has a hate ... hee hi hee hi ho :)
It would have been easy to assume the start against Australia was a reboot of his midfield role but, instead, Erasmus took him to Wellington and introduced him from the bench as a blindside flank against the All Blacks.
The Boks famously won 43-10.
Uhmm, Andre replaced Fassi against the All Blacks and played the game at 12 with Willemse moving to full back with an occasional slot in at 12 from phase play.
And we're supposed to take these blokes seriously, I guess? Anything rather than admitting that in both our record wins over the All Blacks, Andre was the man at 12.
This man is a particularly gross moron….Jake White was the first to see this option. And when he says the immovable Dud Allende, I think he means the unmoving Dud Allende.
A real journalist would have written long ago that Esterhozen might create a new dynamic in our backline. The best inside center in the world is being wasted in this ‘hybrid’ role for the glorification of Dr Lucky.
Nope Jake wanted him to move to flank as he did not see him as a centre - there was nothing hybrid about Jake’s take - just his inability to recognise a class centre when he sees one
9,049 posts
KEO UNCUT | Rassie saw in Andre what we all couldn’t
November 16, 2025 at 00:00 am
Mark Keohane
Columnist
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Andre Esterhuizen on the charge in the test match against France last weekend. (David Rogers/Getty Images)
Andreé Esterhuizen’s Springbok career has always felt like it sat on the edge of something. He was too good to ignore, too imposing to discard, yet somehow always blocked by the immovable presence of Damian de Allende in the No 12 jersey.
For eight years, he hovered in that space between squad certainty and starting uncertainty, trusted enough to be picked but never quite central to the Bok picture.
It created the long-running question: Why persist with a player who never seemed to leapfrog the man in front of him?
Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus had the answer long before the rest of us understood the question.
When he first picked Esterhuizen in 2018, it wasn’t because the Boks needed another crash-ball 12. It was because Erasmus saw qualities most coaches miss in players who don’t fit neatly into defined lanes.
Esterhuizen stood 1.94m tall, weighed 114kg, hit like a loose forward, and moved like a midfielder. His club form at the Sharks, and later in 90 matches for London’s Harlequins, confirmed his class but never quite revealed his full purpose.
Rassie instincts
Quietly, Rassie was seeing more.
Where the rugby world saw an inside centre competing with De Allende, Erasmus saw the outline of something Test rugby had never genuinely had: a player who could live in both the backline and the pack with equal presence.
For Erasmus, initially, it was more instinct than experiment, but Rassie instincts tend to age well.
The transformation, practised with seriousness for the first time in 2025, became visible to all of us in the latter stages of the Springboks’ successful Rugby Championship, and in the November Tests.
Esterhuizen started against Australia at Ellis Park as the traditional No 12, played with authority, and finally got the Test try he had been searching for since his debut against Wales in Washington DC in 2018.
It would have been easy to assume the start against Australia was a reboot of his midfield role but, instead, Erasmus took him to Wellington and introduced him from the bench as a blindside flank against the All Blacks.
The Boks famously won 43-10.
Esterhuizen has looked completely at home as a flank, is a natural with ball in hand, and driving close to the opposition tryline. He loves the close-quarter exchanges and the physicality that comes with the heavy traffic in which a blindside flanker operates.
Andre the Giant
He has been accurate in the collisions, made metres with the ball, and relished the bruising role that speaks to the affection of his nickname, “Andre the Giant”.
It took him into his ninth season of Test rugby to score a try as a Bok centre, but in his past two Tests, as a replacement flank, he has scored two, one against Japan and a lineout maul try against France in Paris. He also had a lineout maul try cancelled against Japan.
This is new territory for Esterhuizen, but it is as if he was born to be Test rugby’s first hybrid player.
There are players who can cover positions, and then there are players who can influence positions. Esterhuizen has proved he is the latter. His game always hinted at this. He enjoys the tight exchanges and he doesn’t shy away from rucks. His defensive reads are those of a midfielder, but his contact dominance is that of a loose forward.
Erasmus has taken those instincts and given them purpose.
Esterhuizen has gone from the “nearly man” of the Springboks midfield to the Boks’ most valuable bench option, and the most uniquely leveraged player in Test rugby.
There is not another player like him in Test rugby.
Esterhuizen gives the Boks a tactical dimension no other Test team can replicate, because they simply don’t have a player who can do what he does.
Erasmus has always believed rugby is a game of advantages, and he finds them where others are not looking. Esterhuizen is one of those advantages.
Erasmus has created something no other team possesses — a genuine Test-level hybrid, and a player whose value has never been greater than it is right now.