{"id":110840,"date":"2025-09-01T13:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T13:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/110840\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T13:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T13:27:09","slug":"rassie-erasmus-clears-up-confusion-over-latest-springboks-squad-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/110840\/","title":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus clears up confusion over latest Springboks squad update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus<\/a> has revealed Faf de Klerk\u2019s call-up to the Springboks squad was a precaution to cover Morne van den Berg rather than replacing hooker Bongi Mbonambi.<\/p>\n

Having originally missed out on the South Africa<\/a> squad that will take on the All Blacks<\/a> over the next two weeks in the Rugby Championship, scrum-half de Klerk was called into the Bok squad while his fellow double World Cup-winning team-mate Mbonambi remained home.<\/a><\/p>\n

While Erasmus appeared to be pulling off a similar move to the 2023 World Cup, where fly-half Handre Pollard<\/a> was drafted in to replace injured hooker Malcolm Marx<\/a>, de Klerk\u2019s recall is slightly more innocuous on this occasion.<\/p>\n

With Marx, Marnus van der Merwe<\/a> and Jan-Hendrik Wessels<\/a> already with the squad in New Zealand, Erasmus recently said that they did not see the need to call in any cover at hooker, and took the opportunity to provide cover for van den Berg, who was carrying a niggle but trained fully on Monday.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Rugby Championship<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

New Zealand <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

South Africa <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cFaf did not replace Bongi,\u201d Erasmus said<\/a>. \u201cMorne van den Berg suffered a niggle at training, but he trained fully today, so he\u2019s looking good. Faf was called up as a precaution. He is an experienced player and brings a lot to the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Bongi\u2019s case, there\u2019s an illness in his family, and he\u2019ll join us as quickly as he can, but we have sufficient cover in that position with Malcom (Marx), Marnus (van der Merwe), and Jan-Hendrik (Wessels), who can also cover prop.\u201d<\/p>\n

With various niggles throughout the Bok squad, Erasmus explained why he has opted to name his squad for the showdown at Eden Park closer to matchday rather than the usual procedure of announcing it earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough match for both sides, and they are a team that analyse thoroughly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver and above that, we are not sure what team they\u2019ll announce, while we also have a few injured players at home, and one or two who are not available for selection this week, so there\u2019s a bit of an unknown factor for us both. By announcing our team later in the week, we believe it will even things out more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus has revealed Faf de Klerk\u2019s call-up to the Springboks squad was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-110840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}