Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber has addressed how his management team went about the process of selecting players for his national alignment camps following an outcry over the omission of a number of players.
There was considerable criticism in some quarters after Nienaber snubbed Stormers No.8 Evan Roos and Bulls veteran Marcell Coetzee for South Africa’s first alignment camp.
“I’m gonna touch on team selection,” Nienaber said on Sunday. “It’s not something that you would like to report on in a media conference. But I was thinking if I give you a little bit of a backdrop of how we think about the team selection and how things work, that would be quite insightful for you guys.”
Nienaber was at pains to point out that alignment camp selection is not comparable to a Test match squad selection. “This is an alignment camp. There hasn’t been a squad selected, there hasn’t been a team selected as yet. A squad selection for the incoming Wales Test series will probably only happen at the back end of May.
“Close to the end of the URC and maybe even then, depending on the amount of teams that make it through to a possible quarterfinal, it might only happen after the quarterfinal. So a team or squad will only get selected later in the season, so this is just the alignment camp where certain individuals get invited.”
“So when we invite players through alignment camp 80 per cent of what we wanna get across in the alignment camps is generic, but sometimes we invite people to alignment camp because there are certain specific things we want to maybe align with that player on and that might differ from player to player.
“And a classic example for me would be the invitation of Johan Goosen to our alignment camp. And I’ve never in my life worked with Johan Goosen. I’ve had a couple of conversations with him, but never face to face so.
“One of the things that I would like to align myself within this alignment camp with Johan Goosen is just to have a chat with him. You know, just to kind of know the guy and to maybe pick up on his character, maybe find out where he is currently at in terms of his rugby career. Are the Boks something that he would aspire to? Does he still wanna play in the World Cup and stuff like that? And I’m not saying that’s the only reason why he’s invited.
“Not everybody that gets invited to this alignment camp will get it automatically invited to the next alignment camp and invitations to alignment camp doesn’t mean that you will be in the squad and selected for the Welsh series.
“And exclusion of invitation to alignment caps doesn’t mean you will not be included in Welsh Test series, so alignment camps, guys, is just like what the name is saying it is.
“Sometimes we know what a player can bring to the party. We’ve worked with him before.
“It’s not a squad that has been selected.
“The purpose of our alignment camp is to share the schedule of 2022 in detail. And also a high schedule for 2023. We are 519 days away from the start of the Rugby World Cup.”
A further alignment camp with overseas players will take place, followed by a second alignment camp for domestic-based players.
Jean-Luc du Preez /PA
“There’s been a lot of things in the media about team selection.
“I’m gonna use loose forwards because there’s a lot of good loose forwards and I’ve got a lot of loose forwards currently that’s playing well that can be in contention for the Springbok side, so I’m gonna use that position as an example and especially I’m gonna talk about this being this big hype between Evan Roos and Elrigh Louw. So just so that you guys can get a little bit of a backdrop of how we process team selection and how we think about it.
“I’m gonna start with the end goal in mind. So when you remember when we go to the World Cup in France, there are only five spots available for loose forwards. And if you look at the guys that we utilized a lot last year and also the guys that have been with us during the 2018/19 season on and going through into the World Cup and we honestly believe that Duane [Vermuelen] can still make France 2023. We honestly believe Peter Steph [Du Toit] can still make France 2023. We believe Siya Kolisi can still make France 2023.
“When I say we still believe. I mean that that that’s saying that there’s not big injuries. That’s saying that they perform on-field and they do the main thing, which is you must play rugby well on Saturday so so if they perform on the field and they play like they are currently doing we we believe they can go to France 2023 then obviously.
“Kwagga Smith joined us at the Rugby World Cup in 2019. If he continues playing good rugby… he can still make France 2023.”
“The fifth guy we used in 2019 was Francois Louw and obviously he retired.
“Look at the age of those players. Yes, Duane is 34. Siya is 30, Pieter Steph is 29 and then Kwagga is 26. He’s almost a youngster pushing the three older dogs there.
