Springboks Selection Barometer Part 1 – The Front Row

With a break in the action and top stars at a national alignment camp this week, we look at the depth at the Springboks’ disposal and the form of the leading local and foreign-based players in the hunt to front the British & Irish Lions.

In the first instalment of a six-part series, Quintin van Jaarsveld focuses on the front-row stocks.

The world champion Springboks are blessed with an abundance of talent across the board and as the cliché goes, it all starts upfront. South Africa’s triumph in Japan in 2019, still the last time they were in action, was founded upon a strong and settled multi-layered foundation, an unrivalled masterpiece of menace and seamless interchangeability.

Rainbow Cup SA Team of the Week – Round 4

Swiss-like in its engineering but the furthest thing from a prized timepiece, the moving parts of this Green and Gold machine make it a mobile torture device. The Springbok management team, headed by Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus, devised a vehicle of destruction, which completed its mission of global domination when it crushed the English like a tank in the one-sided final.

Two years on, it’s finally time to wipe off the pandemic-induced dust and get the death rider back on the open road that is Test rugby. Of the two front-row combinations who led the charge in the final, only the legendary Tendai Mtawarira is no longer around. Schalk Brits is the only other front-row forward of that wider world-beating squad who’s no longer in the picture, with the popular hooker having bowed out with the Beast after the 32-12 victory over England.

The rest are still going strong, still as hungry as ever, while a host of other fire-breathing behemoths also have their sights set on the Lions. Let’s take a closer look at the front-row frontrunners for the series:

The Props

Steven Kitshoff (Stormers)

With 47 Test caps already to his name, the 29-year-old is only now starting to enter his prime. That’s a scary thought for the Lions, especially considering the series will usher in the start of the Kitshoff era as the red-haired titan takes over the Springbok No.1 jersey from Mtawarira. Renowned for his mobility, he’s taken his already strong scrummaging to the next level and grown into a leader at the Stormers in recent seasons.

Lizo Gqoboka (Bulls)

His game-changing performance off the bench against the Sharks a fortnight ago served as a timely reminder of the dominance the Bulls brute is capable of. Goring straight through Thomas du Toit at scrum time and roaring over for the opening try, he turned a tight contest into a runaway win with unbridled strength. Injuries have limited his game time and one can only hope the one he picked up in the Jukskei derby at the weekend isn’t too serious.

Ox Nche (Sharks)

Nche has been a runaway freight train for the Sharks in the Rainbow Cup SA. Consistency is an unheralded hallmark of his game and a coach’s delight, one fuelled by a hunger to add to his lone Springbok cap, which came against Wales in 2018. The 25-year-old did his chances the world of good at the weekend, delivering where it matters most with a first-half mauling of Frans Malherbe in the scrums.

Frans Malherbe (Stormers)

The undisputed rock of the Springbok scrum. As mentioned above, he hit a bit of a roadblock against Nche at the weekend but showed his invaluable experience and scrummaging savvy to turn the corner in the second half. That ability, to right the ship in the fashion that he did, is forged over years of battle at the highest level and is an attribute few props possess, making Malherbe a key figure for South Africa up front.

Trevor Nyakane (Bulls)

Nyakane’s a steam train at present. Like his Bulls prop partner Gqoboka, Nyakane is still building momentum having only returned from injury in the last fortnight. He, too, smashed the Sharks – at set-piece and with bone-crunching hits – and idled against the Lions at the weekend. The Springbok brass know what they have in the veteran, though – a tried-and-tested swing prop – thus, for the charismatic colossus, the lead-up to the series is simply a case of getting sufficient game time and staying injury-free.

Vincent Koch (Saracens)

Koch finds himself in a precarious position through no fault of his own. His pedigree can’t be questioned, however, the fact that Saracens have been languishing in the second-tier RFU Championship, the result of being relegated from the Gallagher Premiership due to salary cap breaches, means the former Stormer has been starved of elite competition. As a result, he could struggle to retain his place in the matchday 23.

Thomas du Toit (Sharks)

The sheer size of “The Tank” makes him a unique force. At a mammoth 138kg, he’s the heaviest Springbok in history along with former lock Rudi “Vleis” Visagie and his output for such a man-mountain is freakish. What weighs even more in his favour is his ability to pack down on both sides of the scrum. Consistent game time in the Sharks No.3 jersey has seen the natural loosehead grow in leaps and bounds at tighthead and he’s firmly in the selection frame as a result.

The Rest:

The likes of Wilco Louw (Saracens) and Coenie Oosthuizen (Sale Sharks) are no strangers to Test rugby while uncapped Lions duo Sti Sithole and Carlu Sadie have also thrown their names into the hat with their recent performances.

Hooker

Bongi Mbonambi (Stormers)

One of the developing success stories of the Rainbow Cup SA has been Mbonambi getting his legs under him again after having missed most of last season due to a hamstring injury that required surgery. The “dog” within the Stormers hooker that Erasmus referenced in the Chasing the Sun docuseries could be seen when he powered over for a try despite having three Lions in his path (time-stamped below) and he set up a try for Pieter-Steph du Toit with a breakaway and good inside ball at the weekend.

Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears)

Marx bulldozed opponents with his trademark power carries in the colours of the Kubota Spears, who he recently helped propel to the semi-finals of the Top League and earned a place in the Team of the Season. With the Japanese competition being less demanding on the body than other top tournaments, he’ll be in prime condition and spoiling to get stuck into the Lions. A world-class hooker with loose forward-like ball-poaching skills, Marx is a machine and maximizes his time on the park.

Akker van der Merwe (Sale Sharks)

Van der Merwe has matured during his time at Sale. He’s not as hotheaded as he was when he first made a name for himself at the Lions and later when he joined the Sharks in Durban yet still plays with the intensity and ferociousness that earned him the “Angry Warthog” moniker. He’s one of the form Springboks at the English club and like Nche and Gqoboka, he has a burning desire for more Test rugby and is in a good position to fill the third hooking berth that Brits vacated.

Joseph Dweba (Bordeaux)

After a breakout Currie Cup season with the title-clinching Cheetahs in 2019, Dweba didn’t set France alight like he’d hoped in his maiden season at Bordeaux. He’s a blue-chipper, though, and odds are if he were to given the opportunity, he’d rise to the occasion. It’s safe to say he’ll be a Springbok in the not too distant future, but with Bordeaux primarily using him as an impact player, he’s a bit of a bolter at this stage.

The Rest

Kerron van Vuuren of the Sharks is arguably at the top of the pecking order of up-and-coming local hookers. Stormers stalwart Scarra Ntubeni, who made his long-awaited Springbok debut against Argentina in 2019, is still rotating with Mbonambi at the Cape franchise while the evergreen Bismarck du Plessis, who recently turned 37, is still doing his thing and won a crucial late turnover in Montpellier’s Challenge Cup final triumph over the Leicester Tigers last Friday.