{"id":646209,"date":"2026-06-18T23:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/646209\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T23:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:28:11","slug":"rassie-erasmus-fascinating-take-on-springboks-depth-as-missing-generation-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/646209\/","title":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus’ fascinating take on Springboks’ depth as ‘missing’ generation revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a>The Springboks have developed the strongest talent pool in the world but it could have been even deeper, according to head coach Rassie Erasmus.<\/p>\n

South Africa and their coaches have done a remarkable job in bringing through their players, to the extent that they have an incredible amount of Test-ready individuals.<\/p>\n

Erasmus<\/a> can rotate at will while suffering little drop-off in standards and that is due to systems put in place by SA Rugby a few years prior to the 2019 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

However, the Boks boss believes that it could have been even better.<\/p>\n

The Springboks\u2019 age gap<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work in tandem in South Africa<\/a>. Since we\u2019ve started the elite player development pathway way back in 2013, we started getting the rewards in 2019 and 2020, and then we got Covid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we missed a lot of players in that Covid era, who didn\u2019t play Craven Week, SA Schools, didn\u2019t go to the SA academy, didn\u2019t play Junior Springboks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why I think you will see a gap in the age bracket between 22 and 26 in the Springboks set-up because those guys didn\u2019t play rugby. A lot of them stopped and didn\u2019t get contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work very closely with [SA Rugby general manager of high performance] Dave [Wessels] and with [Junior Springboks head coach] Kevin [Foote], and then we do our depth chart and then we try and get guys as quickly as possible into the set-up, just to see the guy eye-to-eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes he feel comfortable what we\u2019re doing? Does he understand what we\u2019re saying and how should we approach those guys?<\/p>\n

\u201cDave is great at that and Kevin is great at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springboks team: Five takeaways as focus firmly on Rassie Erasmus\u2019 \u2018untested\u2019 playmaker while \u2018new-look\u2019 Bomb Squad set to explode<\/a><\/p>\n

If there is a slight gap in talent, it will be particularly felt in the front five, but the Springboks are well stocked in that area despite the issues they have at lock heading into the 2026 Test season.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from the junior guys that have just come in, Jan-Hendrik [Wessels] is not an old guy, Ox [Nche] is an experienced guy, Grobbies [Johan Grobbelaar] is playing great rugby. Malcolm [Marx] is 31 then we\u2019ve got [Carlu] Sadie, Zach [Porthen], Wilco [Louw], Neethling [Fouche], Vincent Koch,\u201d Erasmus said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt lock, everybody thought we were a bit thin \u2013 of course we had a lot of injuries and experienced guys not playing \u2013 but there\u2019s Riley [Norton] in the mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eben Etzebeth\u2019s return<\/p>\n

Erasmus also states that world-class second-row Eben Etzebeth is not far off after suffering an injury following his return from a 12-match suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing the final fitness and strength things with Eben to make sure he\u2019s ready for England, which he will be. Lood [de Jager] might be ready then, but a guy like Riley has really put up his hand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Boks boss added: \u201cA guy like Paul de Villiers did the best in the fitness test, not that it should be the headline but I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s going to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did the best of everybody in the fitness test, which is a hard thing, and he played the previous weekend, so we are lucky to be in a position where SA Rugby has created structures where we get some really good players filtering through the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Rassie Erasmus explains shock selection which has led to Springboks \u2018opportunity\u2019 and new Cheslin Kolbe role<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Springboks have developed the strongest talent pool in the world but it could have been even deeper,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[348,3482,50,7196,5903,4247,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-646209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-news","tag-rassie-erasmus","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}