Boks release 16 players to rest ahead of Rugby Championship

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has released several players from the national rugby squad to allow them to rest ahead of the start of the Rugby Championship early next month.

The majority of the players who have been sent home are those who featured in the two-Test series against Ireland.

With the Boks’ next match against tier two side, Portugal, in Bloemfontein this weekend, Erasmus has decided to pick several rising stars for the match, including a number of uncapped players.

The uncapped players in action on Saturday are Andre-Hugo Venter, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Ruan Venter, Morne van den Berg, Quan Horn, Phepsi Buthelezi and Johan Grobbelaar. Seven other players have less than 10 Test caps to their name, including new skipper Salman Moerat.

Released players

The training group has now been cut from 41 to 25 players for this weekend’s Portugal Test following the expanded squad wrapping up their main preparations for the match on Wednesday.

The 16 players released are: Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith, Jasper Wiese, Eben Etzebeth, Vincent Koch, Frans Malherbe, Gerhard Steenekamp, Bongi Mbonambi, Malcolm Marx, Willie le Roux, Cheslin Kolbe, Faf de Klerk, Handre Pollard and Jesse Kriel.

Damian de Allende (personal reasons) and Franco Mostert (injury) left the Bok squad already on Sunday.

These players will get a 10-day break before the squad for the Rugby Championship assembles in Johannesburg next Sunday. The squad for the southern hemisphere competition is expected to be announced during the course of next week.

The two players providing cover for the 23-man squad named for the clash against Portugal are prop Ox Nche and utility back Grant Williams.

Rugby Championship

“We have a demanding Rugby Championship campaign coming up, and we’ve been in training camps and competition respectively since June, so we thought it would be beneficial to give the players who are not playing this weekend a proper break to regenerate,” said Erasmus.

“The players have Thursday off and we only have the captains run left on Friday before the match, so it makes sense to give the players not involved in the match some time off.

“We are playing back-to-back Test matches against the Wallabies in Australia next month, and then we face New Zealand on successive weekends in South Africa, followed by a short tour to Argentina and then a trip to Nelspruit where we will conclude the tournament against Los Pumas, so we have to be sensible in how we manage the players to get the most out of them on the field.”