The key Springboks as Ireland clash looms

Siya Kolisi is the beating heart and will only be better with more game time.

HEARTBEAT: South Africa's Siya Kolisi takes a selfie with fans. Pic: Mike Egerton/PA Wire.

Manie Libbok:

The Boks left it late before hanging their hat on a first-choice out-half. Libbok is 26 and still only has ten caps but he is destined to fill the No.10 jersey for the foreseeable, even as Handre Pollard returns to the squad after injury.

Man of the match against Scotland in their opener, Libbok’s kicking from the tee has not been good enough but he continues to have the backing of the brains trust and his teammates going by Siya Kolisi’s impassioned words on him two weeks ago.

Libbok offers more as a ball player than Pollard and Damian Willemse who started at out-half against Romania but, then again, the Boks will lean to an enormous degree on their physical strength and the box-kick from nine.

Bongi Mbonambi:

The Sharks hooker was a starter in 2019 when the Boks won their third World Cup and he continued in that role until displaced by one of the Bomb Squad’s founder members Malcolm Marx in more recent times.

Marx is regarded as the best hooker in the country, his dynamism and abilities at the ruck making him an extra flanker as much as a world-class front row so the onus on Mbonambi in his injury-enforced absence is enormous.

South Africa are light on cover at hooker with Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden providing cover for Mbonambi and both are far more comfortable in the back row. Proof that not even the Boks can generate enough depth everywhere.

Siya Kolisi:

The captain has been a talisman and a world-class flanker for some time now and his return to the team from a knee injury that threatened his tournament coincided with the team’s impressive defeats of Wales, New Zealand and Scotland.

Word has it that Eben Etzebeth will make it back from the shoulder injury suffered against the Scots in time for the game against Ireland next weekend. If he doesn’t then Kolisi’s role as pack leader and leader of men gets only greater.

His impassioned defence of Manie Libbok after questions about the latter’s poor goal-kicking against Scotland demonstrated just how integral Kolisi is to the Boks. He is the beating heart and will only be better with more game time.