Cape Town — While both veterans have been busy with their injury rehabilitation recently, only one of Duane Vermeulen and Frans Steyn are likely to be ready to feature for the Springboks in next weekend’s Rugby Championship clash against the All Blacks.
The world champions have been busy with a training camp in Hazyview, Mpumalanga since Sunday, and will move to Mbombela over the weekend ahead of next Saturday’s showdown with New Zealand at Mbombela Stadium (5.05pm kickoff).
Vermeulen and Steyn were brought into the 42-man group in place of Marcell Coetzee and Aphelele Fassi from the players that did duty in the 2-1 series win over Wales in July.
The Bok No 8 — who turned 36 earlier this month — had a “clean-out of his knee”, according to coach Jacques Nienaber, while Steyn dealt with a hamstring problem that saw him miss the closing stages of the Cheetahs’ Currie Cup campaign.
“We basically wanted to have a look at them before we go into the Rugby Championship — and before we go on tour to Australia and Argentina. They must handle this week’s load — we are only on Wednesday — and then we’ve still got the Friday training session to come. Then we’ve got next week, and we must make a decision as coaches,” Nienaber said during an online press conference from Hazyview on Wednesday.
“Duane hasn’t had a rugby session as yet, so I think it would be tough to get him into the mix. He is still busy with his return-to-play protocol, if I can put it like that.
“Frans is in training sessions, and is training with us. He did last week with the Cheetahs, who started their pre-season already. So, he’s got one week of pre-season already, and this half-week with us, he’s done rugby-wise.
“But Duane hasn’t been part of the rugby sessions yet. That’s why I say the key thing for us is to have a look at where they are at: where’s their conditioning at, where’s their rugby skills at, to put them in our environment and see how do they cope from an on-field rugby point of view.
“Then we will make an informed decision on selection probably next week, and then selection going forward in the Rugby Championship, we’ll make that at the back-end of next week.”
Nienaber doesn’t believe that the upheaval in the All Black camp following the 2-1 series loss to Ireland — which saw head coach Ian Foster survive the chop and assistants John Plumtree and Brad Moaar removed — will affect the Kiwis too much, citing Swys de Bruin’s departure from the Boks in 2019 shortly before the World Cup.
But the defence guru wants his players to fixing the mistakes from the Welsh series.
“The main thing for us is to control and fix things in our game. We weren’t perfect against Wales, by no means. There is a lot of stuff that we can work on and improve on,” Nienaber said. “We had a nice review on Monday, having a reality check on where we are at, and having to improve.
“(Also) having a look at the goals we set for the Wales series, and where we excelled — in some instances, we thought we actually showed some good growth, and then in other instances, we didn’t show as much growth as we thought we would’ve. So, it’s basically fixing our own stuff.
“It will probably be a bit different to the challenge that we faced against Wales. I think New Zealand — with the athletes that they have and the skill-set they have available to them — it is probably going to be a game that will be built around a lot of continuity, and maybe moving the ball around a bit.
“Then again, they don’t shy away from set-piece battles, which they showed against Ireland. So, I think it will be a blend of set-piece battles, and a little more continuity than what we saw in the Welsh series.”
IOL Sport