The Springboks have more than enough time and Test matches before the 2023 World Cup to develop a winning habit while still selecting youngsters, according to Mark Keohane.
In his blog, Keohane writes that there are 17 Tests for the Boks before their title defence in France, yet he is baffled at the talk coming out of the coaching camp about now isn’t the time to experiment.
He suggests that, at the 2019 World Cup, “the Boks got it right in their last six matches, and before that it was hit and miss”, highlighting the heroics of the relatively inexperienced Lukhanyo Am and Makazole Mapimpi in the final against England in Japan.
Keohane says that the exclusion of Evan Roos by Bok coach Jacques Nienaber for the current national alignment camps, and the likely favouring of Jasper Wiese over Elrigh Louw as Duane Vermeulen’s understudy, speaks to the absurdity of this logic.
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“When I read that 17 Tests is all the Boks have to prepare a defence, it is a nonsense. When I read there is no time to blood youngsters, what nonsense. You only have to revisit 2018 and 2019,” he writes.
“The World Cup is a competition won at the World Cup, and not before it. Many a team has flourished for a full four-year cycle, only to come undone in one play-off match. Read the All Blacks in 2007 and 2019 and England in 2019.
“When I read that Evan Roos and Elrigh Louw can’t both be considered because the Bok coaches won’t risk two in-form 22 year-old No 8s with the World Cup still 18 months to go, I cringe at the contradiction in talk coming from within the Bok coaching set-up, as I do when I read that a player must have 10 Test caps before the start of the 2023 World Cup to be considered.
“What nonsense if you recall 2019, when the most influential trio in the World Cup final, centre Lukhanyo Am and wingers Makazole Mapimpi and Cheslin Kolbe would not have been selected by the very same coaches if a 10-Test pre-World Cup measurement was in place.”
