Why settling on a Bok replacement for Marx is not so straightforward

The Springboks are set to pay a steep price after it was confirmed on Thursday that hooker Malcolm Marx has been ruled out of the rest of the Rugby World Cup in France with a knee injury.

Nienaber had cut a worried figure at the Bok team announcement presser on Wednesday night when he dropped the news that Marx had pulled up injured during Wednesday’s training session and everyone’s worsts fears were confirmed on Thursday when it was confirmed that the experienced hooker had suffered a suspected ACL injury.

Marx is now the fourth former World Cup winner out of the defending champions’ squad, with Handre Pollard, Lukhanyo Am and Lood de Jager all not making the final 33-man group due to injury.

Cover at hooker

The injury won’t make a big impact on the match 23 selected for this weekend’s pool clash against Romania as Marx was never in line to play in it, however it will have major repercussions for the rest of the tournament.

Bok coach Jacques Nienaber though is in no rush to call up a replacement.

“We have enough cover at hooker with Bongi (Mbonambi) and Deon (Fourie) in the squad, while Marco (van Staden) has also been training there and has been named on all our team sheets so far as a hooker option.

“We’ll assess our needs for the rest of the tournament and confirm who we are calling up as an additional player later this week.”

Pollard was arguably the player first in line to be parachuted straight into the Bok squad if there was an injury during the tournament, but with Marx being in a specialist position and the team thin there, it is now uncertain what the team management will decide.

Mbonambi is now the only specialist hooker in the squad. Though Fourie started his career in the position he is now a frontline loose forward, while Van Staden is another back-up option, but surely only in a worst case scenario.

The obvious choice would be calling up Joseph Dweba as the injury replacement, but the Bok management has not been sold on him as evidenced by Fourie being selected as the ‘third choice’ hooker option for the World Cup.

Grobbelaar or Van der Merwe

It seems that the Boks will now have to pay the price for not blooding another hooker option over the past two years.

Bulls youngster Johan Grobbelaar was the obvious choice, but after being part of the Bok squad in 2021 and then suffering an injury later that year, he has not been picked since.

Former Bok hooker Akker van der Merwe could have been another option.

It will thus be interesting to see what the Boks decide in the coming days and how they will look to fill the massive void left by Marx.

Official Boks World Cup standby list: Handre Pollard, Lukhanyo Am, Lood de Jager, Joseph Dweba, Thomas du Toit, Jean-Luc du Preez, Herschel Jantjies, Evan Roos, Gerhard Steenekamp