{"id":544819,"date":"2026-07-26T13:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544819\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T13:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:24:15","slug":"can-only-live-off-reputation-for-so-long-ex-bok-coach-questions-eben-etzebeths-place-in-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544819\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Can only live off reputation for so long&#8217;: Ex-Bok coach questions Eben Etzebeth&#8217;s place in side"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>  Published: 11 hours ago | 25 July 2026 22:20 EDT  <\/p>\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>international<\/p>\n<p>    JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; JULY 4: Lood de Jager of South Africa with Siya Kolisi of South Africa and Eben Etzebeth of South Africa during the 2026 Nations Championship match between South Africa and England at Ellis Park Stadium on July 4, 2026 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Steve Haag\/Nations Championship via Getty Images) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      <a href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbypass.com%2F\" onclick=\"GATracking.sendDataLayerEvent(&#039;preferredsourcegoogle&#039;);\" aria-label=\"Google Prefered Source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/google_preferred_source_badge_light.png\" alt=\"Google Prefered Source\" width=\"141\" height=\"44\" class=\"google-source\"\/> <\/a>     <\/p>\n<p>Springboks lock Eben Etzebeth is under pressure to retain his place in the top Springbok side after a long stint of the sidelines according to former Springbok coach Nick Mallett.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old hasn\u2019t played a Test since November after being suspended for 12 weeks following a melee against Wales. The lock was named to play against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/england\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England<\/a> but was a late withdrawal before missing all three Tests, while he missed significant time with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/sharks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sharks<\/a> during the URC season.<\/p>\n<p>Mallett said there were question marks over whether Etzebeth can get through the training required to be play against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/argentina\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Argentina<\/a> ahead of the Greatest Rivalry tour with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/postview.rugbypass.com\/images\/video-player\/spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/postview.rugbypass.com\/images\/video-player\/spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cA guy like Eben Etzebeth has taken such a long time to get back into the mix,\u201d Mallett on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jkJHdmkL5_Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Talking Boks<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you\u2019ve got to have a question mark as to whether one game against Argentina and some really intense alignment camps are going to be enough for him to go straight into an All Blacks Test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRassie [Erasmus] will answer that question. He said you never perform well if you aren\u2019t physically able to handle a hard training week and then play on Saturday. So this Argentina game is massive for a number of our players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Etzebeth wasn\u2019t the only big name Bok to miss the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/nations-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nations Championship<\/a> fixtures in July, with inspirational figurehead Siya Kolisi also battling injury.<\/p>\n<p>The ex-Bok coach said that all the players coming back \u201chad to perform\u201d and \u201ccouldn\u2019t live off reputation\u201d to make this Springboks side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can only live on reputation for so long. You\u2019ve actually got to perform,\u201d Mallett added. \u201cThe players who\u2019ve played over the last three weekends have all performed well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo the guys coming back from injury know this Argentina game is a very, very important one for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Etzebeth\u2019s absence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a> used Pieter-Steph du Toit as a lock, Ruan Nortje, Cobus Wiese, and Ruben van Heerden while in the back row one of the star performers was newcomer Paul de Villers.<\/p>\n<p>Injury doubts still persist over Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Lood de Jager, Franco Mostert, Andr\u00e9 Esterhuizen and Morn\u00e9 van den Berg.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of star flyhalf Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Erasmus had commented they are trying to get him ready to go against Argentina despite only being two months into an expected three month layoff.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 11 hours ago | 25 July 2026 22:20 EDT mens international JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; JULY 4:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-544819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}