Boks go big on the bench for Ireland clash with 7/1 split

Is it risky? Yes, but Erasmus and Nienaber will have war-gamed every eventuality and the choice of Kwagga Smith attests to the method within any apparent madness.

The Springboks matchday 23.

Kwagga Smith couldn’t have known how on-the-money his words would prove to be when he put forward his case to play some part for the Springboks as the world champions prepared to welcome the British and Irish Lions to their shores.

A versatile back row, Smith had just completed a full season playing No.8 for the Shizuoka Blue Revs in Japan. He featured on the blindside for the Boks during their successful 2019 World Cup campaign and at openside against New Zealand in the Rugby Championship.

“I am open to anything,” he said in 2021.

Little did he know. Smith duly proved his worth as a utility back row in a series that the hosts won 2-1 in the midst of the Covid epidemic. He replaced Pieter-Steph du Toit in the second Test and then both Franco Mostert and Siya Kolisi at different stages of the third.

He will provide cover off the bench again this Saturday when the Boks face Ireland in a potentially epic Pool B encounter but that brief will extend to the wing, and who knows where else, as Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber roll the dice.

Their decision to go with a 7/1 split on the bench, first trialled against the All Blacks in Twickenham last month, is unorthodox and even controversial for some but it chimes with the left-field thinking routinely employed by this Springbok brains trust.

Is it risky? Yes, but Erasmus and Nienaber will have war-gamed every eventuality and the choice of Smith – the seventh forward named on a bench that contains just one back in scrum-half Cobus Reinach – attests to the method within any apparent madness.

Now 30, Smith spent the bones of four years on the sevens circuit with the Blitzboks where he won a Commonwealth gold medal and a bronze at the 2016 Olympics. Sevens demands multi-functional players and the Springboks have embraced this idea like no other.

And Smith offers further insight into the debate swirling around this new-wave thinking because claims that the use of seven forwards off the bench are a possible health and safety issue have to be compromised by the player’s standing height of 5’ 11”.

He isn’t massive.

Nienaber was giving little away on their thinking after the squad was revealed. They went with the split, he said, because they believe it’s the best means of securing a result on Saturday. As for which forwards could cover the back line? Not for public consumption.

"Obviously people look at it and say it’s a risk, but for us it’s a calculated risk,” said Nienaber. “There are guys on that bench who cover various positions, but that is not something I’d like to go into too much because it is probably more tactical.

“I don’t want to talk too much about tactics. We have a lot of versatility in the squad and we showed that on the weekend by playing four nines [against Romania]. But we are comfortable with the risk we are taking.” 

It is, nonetheless, a staggering statement of intent by the Boks who will have utility forwards Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden again acting as back-up hookers to Bongi Mbonambi in the wake of Malcolm Marx’s loss for the duration through injury.

Eben Etzebeth, who came off injured in their opening win against Scotland, has made it back in time, as had been predicted, from his shoulder issue and he will line up in the second row alongside Mostert. The front and back rows are as expected.

If there were slight doubts over a handful of backline positions then it was always more likely that Damian Willemse and Kurt-Lee Arendse would get the nod over Willie Le Roux and Makazole Mapimpi respectively.

The question for Ireland now is do they stick with their traditional 5/3 split or arch their backs towards their opponents with an extra forward off the bench. Whatever about that, Nienaber sees a game between two evenly-match opponents.

The Bok head coach estimated that both squads boast an average age of 29/20 years old and held an average age each of somewhere between 28 and 30. He was mostly right in that but Ireland boast five fewer caps per man and come in two years younger.

But the point stands, this is the two teams at the top of the world rankings.

"That’s the exciting part, to see if our plans will work against them. Will we be able to handle the pressure they put us under? There will be ebbs and flows in the game. Will they be able to handle the pressure that’s on them?

“Because at the end of the day this is an important game for both teams. It’s only the third game of the pool, but if Ireland slip up in this game, their Scotland game becomes massive. If we slip against them in this game, our Tonga game becomes massive.

"So there will be pressure in this game. It’s exciting to see how the players will handle it."

Gauntlet laid.

South Africa (v Ireland): D Willemse; KL Arendse, J Kriel, D de Allende, C Kolbe; M Libbok, F de Klerk; S Kitshoff, B Mbonambi, F Malherbe; E Etzebeth, F Mostert; S Kolisi, PS du Toit, J Wiese.

Replacements: D Fourie, O Nche, T Nyakane, J Kleyn, RG Snyman, M van Staden, K Smith, C Reinach.