Aphelele-Sacha subplot could be most important against All Blacks

The Springboks’ success on Saturday against the All Blacks will be as much based on the performance of two young upstarts as it will be their powerful set piece and physicality.

In handing the keys to the team to two young players for the All Blacks Test, coach Rassie Erasmus has taken a bold step forward for the future, and at the same time unlocked a way of playing that may turn out to be exceptionally forward-thinking.

It was long expected that Erasmus would revert to the so-called main guns when it came to facing the All Blacks.

And with the injury crisis up front, that view looked to have been cemented going into the game as well.

But going into a game against the arch-rivals without Willie le Roux or Handre Pollard in the starting lineup was unthinkable a year ago.

This weekend though, the Boks have signalled the move to the new game plan, and preparing for the future will not be stalled just because of a tough Test match or two.

Erasmus has been clear that the young players coming through the ranks need to have 30 to 40 Test matches under their belts ahead of the next World Cup and while he has managed both Aphelele Fassi and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu well, both are seen as the next generation that will take the Boks into the 2027 World Cup.

And while Pollard and Le Roux served each other as playmakers, the two youngsters offer a different challenge to the opposition — one (Fassi) being more a strike runner while Feinberg-Mngomezulu is the playmaker.

The opportunity for the Boks to be different on attack with Fassi complementing the two wingers in Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse has not been lost on the team, and Erasmus has backed both to go and show their worth at the highest level.

Erasmus dismissed suggestions he should have shielded Feinberg-Mngomezulu from the challenge for a bit longer.

“Sacha was marked in the under-15 and under-16 systems, and he played for SA Schools, was captain of the Junior Boks, played SA ‘A’ games, and trained against the Springboks on last year’s end-of-year tour.

“Now he is playing in his seventh cap, and having built up to this game, and to now take it away from him at this highest level, it will be stupid.

“Let him make some mistakes and learn and get better.”

While Fassi has a cult following, especially among Sharks fans, the lanky fullback has sometimes struggled with his defence and dropped out of the Bok reckoning for a while because of this.

But Erasmus sees this as his moment to shine, his moment to explode against one of the toughest teams to play against.

“We are all waiting for Aphelele to do it now. That was the word all of last week: ‘Do it now, it’s now you. You’ve got to show the people what you can do, and why you are here. They haven’t seen the things that you do’,” Erasmus said.

“But unfortunately with everything, there’s first the hard grafting involved in a game before you get to do the beautiful thing.

“So him getting that highball technique right and not lifting that leg; combining with the wing, small defensive things; and now it’s his time to shine.”

As if there was not enough scrutiny on any Boks vs All Blacks Test, this weekend offers a tapestry of different subplots.

And the Aphelele-Sacha subplot may turn out to be the most important of them all. 

• Meanwhile, Bok lock Eben Etzebeth has been cleared to face NZ in Johannesburg on Saturday after completing all the training sessions this week and has been drafted onto the replacements bench.

Etzebeth, who was initially excluded from the Boks’ match-23 for the first of two Tests due to an injury concern earlier in the week, replaces Marco van Staden on the bench, which offers the team specialist lock cover for the starting combination of Pieter-Steph du Toit and Ruan Nortje. — SuperSport.com