Cape Town — The Springboks start their final week of Rugby Championship preparation with the extended squad in Pretoria on Monday.
The camp will end Thursday 29 June, after which the world champions will shift their focus to the core squad playing in the first test of the year against Australia in Pretoria next week.
Jacques Nienaber, Springbok coach, already alluded to the fact that they will choose separate squads for the Wallabies test and the one against the All Blacks (15 July in New Zealand), and this week will give them a chance to weigh the two teams up against each other on the field.
It's expected that flyhalf Damian Willemse will be ready for his first field sessions this week after a knee injury kept him on the sidelines in the first two weeks of the camp in Pretoria.
The Boks will not rush him back into contact just yet, but they'll rather make sure he recovers fully before partaking in the tournament. This means he could be introduced in the second or third match (against Argentina).
Willemse and flyhalf Handré Pollard picked up niggles at their clubs, and Pollard will only return at a later stage of the Boks' World Cup preparation if all goes well with his recovery from a recurring calf injury.
Manie Libbok will most likely wear the 10-jersey against Australia bar any injury over the next week, with the returning Elton Jantjies also in the mix as a backup.
What will be interesting this week is to see exactly how Nienaber, director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and the rest of the Springbok selectors split the sides for mission Loftus and the trip to Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland.
Nienaber said last week that they will not pick a 'B' team to face the Wallabies, but one that can beat them. The same goes for the All Blacks clash.
With only three tests in the truncated Rugby Championship this year — due to the World Cup in France — this week will be important for Nienaber and company to finalise the squads for the two matches. The guys traveling to New Zealand will do so in the week of the Wallabies test to give them enough time to acclimatise Down Under.
They have a rough idea of how their split squads will look, but some details will be ironed out in the final week of the extended squad camp.
Probably the toughest choice will be appointing the captains for the two trips in the absence of regular captain Siya Koli. Who takes the armband against a fired-up Australia, and who runs in front against arch-rivals the All Blacks?
Centre Lukhanyo Am, eighth man Duane Vermeulen, Pieter-Steph du Toit, and Steven Kitshoff are the guys in the front line to lead the team. Vermeulen had the armband for most of the 2019 Rugby Championship. But he is not a certainty at number 8 anymore with the rise of Jasper Wiese, Evan Roos, and Kwagga Smith.
Nienaber them will most likely call on him in one of the tests, but the likes of Kitshoff, Am, or Du Toit could also be called on.
For now, though, the focus will be squarely on Eddie Jones' Australia. They will certainly come to South Africa with one thing in mind - to land a first and early blow on the world champions ahead of France 2023.
The Aussies haven't won the Rugby Championship since 2015, and Jones will be looking to start his second coming as Wallaby coach with a trophy.
There is no doubt that this will be a crucial week where the final Bok plans should take shape ahead of the Championship kickoff.
IOL Sport