Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Rassie Erasmus releases three Springboks before Argentina finale

Canan Moodie of South Africa walks onto the stadium during the South Africa national men's rugby team captain's run at Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades on September 20, 2024 in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. (Photo by Luis Santillan/Gallo Images)

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus has released Johan Grobbelaar, Ben-Jason Dixon and Canan Moodie back to their clubs ahead of the first round of United Rugby Championship action for South African sides.

ADVERTISEMENT

All three were recently part of the 28-man Springboks squad that travelled to Argentina, but Dixon was the only one that featured in the 29-28 defeat to the Pumas, starting in the No7 jersey with a brief dalliance at scrumhalf.

Hooker Grobbelaar and utility back Moodie will return to the Bulls, who host Edinburgh on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld in round two of the URC.

Video Spacer

‘That Manie Libbok kick will follow him’ | RPTV

The Boks Office crew react to South Africa’s one-point loss to Argentina, with all to play for in Nelspruit this coming weekend. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

Video Spacer

‘That Manie Libbok kick will follow him’ | RPTV

The Boks Office crew react to South Africa’s one-point loss to Argentina, with all to play for in Nelspruit this coming weekend. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

Dixon’s Stormers will face the Ospreys later that day at Dunraven Brewery Field.

The Springboks only need a solitary point from their return clash with the Pumas in Mbombela Stadium to win the Rugby Championship.

Fixture
Rugby Championship
South Africa
48 - 7
Full-time
Argentina
All Stats and Data

“It would have been great for the players to remain with us and attend Saturday’s game in Nelspruit after their contributions to our Castle Lager Rugby Championship campaign, and it would have been special for them if we tick the necessary boxes to win the tournament,” Erasmus said.

“But it’s important to do our bit to assist the domestic franchises in their Vodacom URC campaigns.

ADVERTISEMENT

“They have big games lined up, and every point in the competition counts, so we have no doubt the players will add immense value to their teams.”

Related

Watch the highly acclaimed five-part documentary Chasing the Sun 2, chronicling the journey of the Springboks as they strive to successfully defend the Rugby World Cup, free on RugbyPass TV (*unavailable in Africa)

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

12 Comments
f
fl 96 days ago

2 years ago I thought Moodie was the best young player in the world and the future of south african rugby, but he seems to have seriously fallen out of favour since then.


In the last 12 months he's played in two tests - one against Tonga in a heavily rotated side, and one against New Zealand a couple of weeks ago, a game in which he was South Africa's worst player.

B
Bull Shark 95 days ago

He hasn’t fallen out of favour. And if I recall correctly, you claimed Moodie was overrated!


He was injured (in June) and wasn’t available for the beginning of the RC.


He hasn’t shown the form he had prior to his injury yet, but he will be back. He needs game time.


And you’d have to drop Kolbe, KLA or Kriel for him to play which is simply not justifiable based on form. And his only recently becoming available for selection against New Zealand.


Much like Am was so good prior to his knee injury, he can’t seem to get back into the starting line up. It’s tough getting back on after a lengthy absence, particularly on the wings.

Load More Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

A
AllyOz 20 hours ago
Does the next Wallabies coach have to be an Australian?

I will preface this comment by saying that I hope Joe Schmidt continues for as long as he can as I think he has done a tremendous job to date. He has, in some ways, made the job a little harder for himself by initially relying on domestic based players and never really going over the top with OS based players even when he relaxed his policy a little more. I really enjoy how the team are playing at the moment.


I think Les Kiss, because (1) he has a bit more international experience, (2) has previously coached with Schmidt and in the same setup as Schmidt, might provide the smoothest transition, though I am not sure that this necessarily needs to be the case.


I would say one thing though about OS versus local coaches. I have a preference for local coaches but not for the reason that people might suppose (certainly not for the reason OJohn will have opined - I haven't read all the way down but I think I can guess it).


Australia has produced coaches of international standing who have won World Cups and major trophies. Bob Dwyer, Rod Macqueen, Alan Jones, Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones. I would add John Connolly - though he never got the international success he was highly successful with Queensland against quality NZ opposition and I think you could argue, never really got the run at international level that others did (OJohn might agree with that bit). Some of those are controversial but they all achieved high level results. You can add to that a number of assistants who worked OS at a high level.


But what the lack of a clear Australian coach suggests to me is that we are no longer producing coaches of international quality through our systems. We have had some overseas based coaches in our system like Thorn and Wessels and Cron (though I would suggest Thorn was a unique case who played for Australia in one code and NZ in the other and saw himself as a both a NZer and a Queenslander having arrived here at around age 12). Cron was developed in the Australian system anyway, so I don't have a problem with where he was born.


But my point is that we used to have systems in Australia that produced world class coaches. The systems developed by Dick Marks, which adopted and adapted some of the best coaching training approaches at the time from around the world (Wales particularly) but focussed on training Australian coaches with the best available methods, in my mind (as someone who grew up and began coaching late in that era) was a key part of what produced the highly skilled players that we produced at the time and also that produced those world class coaches. I think it was slipping already by the time I did my Level II certificate in 2002 and I think Eddie Jones influence and the priorities of the executive, particularly John O'Neill, might have been the beginning of the end. But if we have good coaching development programmes at school and junior level that will feed through to representative level then we will have


I think this is the missing ingredient that both ourselves and, ironically, Wales (who gave us the bones of our coaching system that became world leading), is a poor coaching development system. Fix that and you start getting players developing basic skills better and earlier in their careers and this feeds through all the way through the system and it also means that, when coaching positions at all levels come up, there are people of quality to fill them, who feed through the system all the way to the top. We could be exporting more coaches to Japan and England and France and the UK and the USA, as we have done a bit in the past.


A lack of a third tier between SR and Club rugby might block this a little - but I am not sure that this alone is the reason - it does give people some opportunity though to be noticed and play a key role in developing that next generation of players coming through. And we have never been able to make the cost sustainable.


I don't think it matters that we have an OS coach as our head coach at the moment but I think it does tell us something about overall rugby ecosystem that, when a coaching appointment comes up, we don't have 3 or 4 high quality options ready to take over. The failure of our coaching development pathway is a key missing ingredient for me and one of the reasons our systems are failing.

131 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ What is the future of rugby in 2025? What is the future of rugby in 2025?
Search