Rassie Erasmus’ verdict on three Junior Boks’ involvement with Springboks’ training
Rassie Erasmus says that the three World Rugby U20 Championship-winning Junior Boks are ‘no chance’ of playing for the Springboks in 2025.
Bathobele Hlekani, Cheswill Jooste, and Haashim Pead linked up with Bok senior squad in Johannesburg, training with the back-to-back World Cup winners as they prepare for the upcoming Rugby Championship.
Erasmus has invited the trio to see how they acclimatise to the Springbok environment and look to the future.
Looking to the future
While the youngsters impressed en route to winning the tournament in Italy, the Bok coaches don’t see any of them making the step up to the highest level this year.
“Realistically, we know all of us [the coaches] will be involved until 2027 if we don’t get fired before then,” he joked.
“But we are just looking at all the possibilities of guys, we try to have three positions deep in experience, being calm and understanding the Springbok set-up and also get enough youth involved there. If you get three injuries in one position, and that can happen in one or two games, then you have three more players in one position.
“We definitely don’t see those guys playing Test matches this year, but we’re getting them used to the environment here and wherever they go for their franchises or their clubs… It’s just for us to understand how quickly they can make the step up and settle into the environment with the energy they bring, like what we did with Ntokozo Makhaza.
The three of them know 100% well that there’s no chance [that they play for the Springboks this year], unless they really knock down the door and blow us away at training sessions.”
Erasmus added that while learning is a big part of their involvement in the camps, the trio aren’t sitting on the sidelines during training sessions but are getting properly involved in every aspect of the camp.
They take part in every single part of the training, boardroom, classroom, morning, physical sessions, scrum sessions and so on,” he continued.
So, it’s not like we put them out of certain things, it’s not just for them to sit and listen and learn, it is for them to take part as well. Also, for the older guys to know this is what is coming through.
