Rassie hopes to give uncapped Boks a chance on tour: ‘They’re special players’

The six uncapped Springbok players face an uphill battle to force their way into the match day squad on their end-of-year-tour. Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is hopeful that he will be able to give some of their most exciting young rising talents a run and hand out a few maiden caps during their end-of-year-tour Nations Championship games in November. Erasmus on Monday named his match 23 to face Italy in their first game of the second leg of the new competition, but none of the six uncapped players in the 37-man squad made the cut. Older heads Emmanuel Tshituka and Sebastian de Klerk (both 26), along with youngsters Riley Norton, Yaqeen Ahmed (both 20), Luan Giliomee and Markus Muller (both 19) are all hoping to pick up a maiden cap on tour. But having been left out of the match day squad for the match against Italy, which is arguably the Boks‘ easiest game of the month, they will face an uphill battle to feature in any of the other match day squads. With France in Paris and Ireland in Dublin to follow, before the Boks finish off their international season with the Finals Weekend at Twickenham, it is likely that they will be backing their strongest possible team over the whole month. But some of the players could possibly feature in one of those games, with utility forward Norton, whose primary position is lock, arguably the one with the biggest chance of forcing his way into the mix. Norton chances Earlier this year after Norton was injured in Bok training ahead of the home leg of the Nations Championship, Erasmus admitted that he had intended to give the Junior Springbok captain his first cap in their opening match against England. The Bok boss thus has faith in his abilities to front up against a top side like England, so it wouldn’t be a big surprise to see him get backed against France or Ireland. Salmaan Moerat, who has just returned from injury and played two games for new club La Rochelle over the past two weekends, has been backed to step in at lock for the injured Eben Etzebeth against Italy, and he might be rotated with Norton at some point. Due to the massive competition in other positions the other players are unlikely to get a shot, unless there are a few injuries or the Boks don’t qualify for the main game of the Finals Weekend, as if they play in one of the lower placed games, they may give their fringe players a run in that match. “They all joined us in camp today and are excited about the tour ahead, so we’ll expose them to our structures this week,” explained Erasmus about the six uncapped players after naming his team to take on Italy on Monday. “We will monitor how they progress and hopefully we’ll be able to give them a chance to show what they can do at this level against top opposition in the next few weeks. “They are special players, who all bring something different to the team, and we have full faith in their talent and skillsets.” The Boks’ match against Italy on Saturday kicks off at 1.40pm SA time.