Johannesburg – Springbok coach Allister Coetzee is juggling between injuries and how to pick his best squad in a bid to win the Rugby Championship.
Winning the June series against Ireland came at a heavy cost, but Coetzee’s true worth will unfortunately be judged on his ability to rule the south.
The toll of injuries has been bigger than anticipated after the sidelining of No 8s Duane Vermeulen and Warren Whiteley, while the injuries to Jan Serfontein and Pat Lambie have brought on a headache of migraine proportions to Coetzee’s selection crisis prior to his first southern campaign.
Add to that, injuries to utility prop Trevor Nyakane and lock Lood de Jager, and what might be prospective Boks in Cheslin Kolbe, RG Snyman and Warrick Gelant who Coetzee has been eyeing since the beginning of his tenure as coach.
Vermeulen was undoubtedly the man Coetzee banked on to lead the charge in the Rugby Championship and to a larger extent he would have given him more leadership responsibilities while the Saru look for an amicable solution to bringing Vermeulen home from French club Toulon.
In all honesty, Vermeulen should have recovered from his elbow injury in time to face Argentina in Mbombela in the Springboks’ opening game of the Rugby Championship, but the question remains whether the abrasive No8 will be at his best after a season of playing in the French Top 14 and bringing the curtain down on the season with two Tests against Ireland in June.
While Vermeulen would have never been a problem for Coetzee prior to Whiteley being injured, there is a vacancy at No8 that Coetzee will need to fill in the remaining weeks of the Super Rugby competition.
Even though smaller, Whiteley had become an important cog in Coetzee’s machine, not only fulfilling the role left vacant by Vermeulen but was the form player and leader among what was left of the Springbok No8s.
Whiteley has now been ruled out for six weeks because of a shoulder injury sustained against the Irish and by the time the Rugby Championship starts, it is his match fitness that will come under the spotlight.
If Whiteley doesn’t regain full fitness for the first part of the competition, Coetzee will have to look to the likes of the young brigade in Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Nizaam Carr and Teboho Mohoje to fill in at the back of the scrum, but it is their lack of Test rugby experience that’s a risk.
Then there is the problem at prop, where Nyakane had provided the perfect cover for both loosehead and tighthead and had established himself as Coetzee’s swinger even though Nyakane has been struggling to anchor himself at his franchise.
Nyakane has also been ruled out for the remainder of the Super Rugby season with an ankle ligament injury again leave Coetzee in a conundrum on who to back as a dual purpose prop.
The calf injury to Lood de Jager will in all likelihood be healed by the time the Springboks take on Argentina, Australia and the All Blacks but the possible unavailability of Lions lock Franco Mostert because of his commitments to his new French club and the injury to rising star Snyman could potentially create a problem in the second row.
Snyman has also been ruled out for the remainder of the Super Rugby season after injuring himself during the series against the English Saxons and will possibly join the long list of Bulls players that will only return to action early next year.
While the debate at flyhalf may have been resolved with the courage that Elton Jantjies plays even though carrying a wrist and finger injury, Coetzee will already be pondering on who might fill in the boots at pivot if Jantjies and the injury-prone Lambie breakdown during, or even before, the Rugby Championship.
Will Coetzee finally give an opportunity to talented Sharks flyhalf Garth April with Morne Steyn still acting as a replacement when required?
The lack of credible inside centres is another headache for Coetzee with Serfontein likely to be out until the end of the Rugby Championship and Damian de Allende struggles to find the form that made him unstoppable.
Will Coetzee opt to bring in a new number 12 for the Rugby Championship as cover for the out-of-sorts De Allende or might he just produce a trump card in the form of Juan de Jongh who is likely to make the national Sevens squad ahead of the Rio Olympic Games next month?
There are no injury woes at wing to speak of besides the tricky situation with JP Pietersen who moves to English outfit Leicester Tigers at the conclusion of Super Rugby while Bryan Habana, even though still relevant, is not the player to bank on looking beyond the Olympic Games especially in green and gold.
The scourge of injuries continue to plague plans of finding a fullback with an eye on the 2019 Rugby World Cup heavily derailed with the sudden injury of Bulls fullback Gelant, viewed as Willie Le Roux’s successor in the not-too-distant future.
Gelant suffered a jaw injury earlier in the Bulls Super Rugby season but his elevation into the higher echelons of South African rugby, be it Sevens or the longer version of the game, have been brought to an abrupt halt by the knee-ligament damage injury sustained recently.
With Gelant out and Le Roux not convincing during the series against Ireland and suffering from a shoulder injury, it is becoming more evident that Coetzee will need to go into the market in search of a fullback in the hope that Kolbe will return from Rio safe and unharmed.
While Coetzee spends most of his mini-holiday pondering the the task he accepted – even though he knew that Saru had sent a hospital pass his way – he also knew that injuries were part of the game and that his Springboks will always take the beating from rugby’s public court of opinion.
– The Sunday Independent