Where Are the Springboks Really At? Jan de Koning After Rassie's Press Conference

welcome back to the rugby rundown on mega fun rugby in conjunction with rugby unfolded jan de kuning and laffy earloff's own podcast and their channel rugby unfolded i'm going to put the link down here make sure you visit them as well so jan with that out of the way welcome back it's nice been a while so thank you for making time for me again yes i i think both of us know what it's like getting old so unlike some springbok players we don't make as much money as they do but It is nice to be back and it's nice to talk rugby again. Yeah, well, we don't like any money. Anyway, thanks, man. We just finished watching the press conference with Rassi Rasmus. And in typical Rassi style, it wasn't as short and sweet as it was supposed to be.

And he said to the press officer, Zina, I don't care if I take too long, I'm going to talk about this, remember? And you actually asked him a couple of questions. What, firstly, were your impressions overall of this press conference? Is it a confident Rassi? Is it a bit of a worried Rassi?

What are you seeing there? I see a Russie that knows exactly where he's going with his team. He doesn't mess around. He's got his plans. I did an article where he said that he likes, you know he's going to have some interesting selections and he's definitely going to come up with a few tricks.

So it sounded to me like Russie knows exactly where he's going. He wasn't concerned about the list of injuries. He explained who's the long-term injury. So I think Russi in general is a comfortable man. I would say he's comfortable.

I mean, obviously, with the injuries we've got, there's issues. But I think Russi is very comfortable with where the box are. Let's dive into those injuries a little bit. Because initially, he didn't want to name the names. And you actually asked him a question about certain specific players, about Ereburn and the likes.

And he had to dig out his phone and go see what's actually the situation name by name. That was quite interesting. You asked him about several specific players, and he gave specific answers, I thought a bit of an eye opener. Talk to me about that. So the standout from that for me, personally, I know some people might look at the other places, we'll go through them now, but the standout for me was definitely Salman Murat.

Because obviously Ruben replaced him earlier this week and everybody said, what happened to Salman? And people started mocking him, did he bump his toe again, did somebody drop a cup of coffee on his toe or whatever. you know there's uh the reality is he's got a long-term serious long-term neck injury and as he said he and his words were i think it's very serious so and when when someone has been injured a lot in the last few years various injuries but he has said uh problems and now so the which includes a concussion a serious concussion and now to have a neck injury at his age you know he's still a young player. I mean, you know, it might not be as bad as I think it is, but Russi used the word serious, and when he talks serious neck injury, then it's long term. So, to me, that's the most significant of the injuries.

And then, oh, I'll run through, I mean, Kevin is back, Luit is back, so we covered that lock. Props, we know that Franz and Trevon O'Kane is still injured. We didn't expect them back because they're not even in the squad. So, So I think those two guys' careers are over. So that's the other significant thing for me that people need to start making peace with.

As good as France is and as confident as people are that he's still training with the Stormers, we know that he doesn't train with a team. He doesn't scrum. He trains with the team on the sideline. He can have input. He can become a scrum coach like some other players.

Oh, God. And we know Erge's name, and we all know that. Erge is not going to play this year, so he's long-term. And we've spoken about Salman. the other significant injuries that I do need Ruan Fenter, that's a big one because Rassi made a point of saying that Ruan he wanted to start playing at four lock so I see him using Ruan as four lock flank much like Franco Mostert because he's young enough I think that's the position that Rassi sees him in for the future for World Cup next year as a backup to Franco and then after that maybe for the 31 World Cup that Franco was, because he's got a big engine.

You see, and that's significant. That's why I say, Rossi's always got a plan. So we know he's looking for somebody like Franco that can do that sort of job, that's got a big engine and that doesn't, you know, he does hard work all the time. So Ruan Fente is a massive blow. Peter Steff is available.

Sia is available. Krapis, long-term injury. So Mone van den Berg is not. Kürbis Reinach, that was an interesting one. So when he said Kürbis Reinach is available, but Kürbis is not going to like it because he's not going to play until England.

Kürbis is not going to play in the warm-up game against the Barbas. So, Rashi is keeping him in cotton wool for the England game. Grant Williams is ready. Ethan Hooker is long-term. Fassier is back.

So, yeah, those are the key ones. So, yeah, I think it is very interesting that he was... But that's what I like about Rashi. If you ask him a specific question, he will answer you and he will answer you honestly. so he gave us a good insight into what type of team we're going to have so you know if you want to who's going to be locked?

Iben and Luit so you know and if things look a bit odd he might arrest them for the Barbas and play them against England but I think very much because both of them haven't played a lot of game time. Luit's only just come back from injury played a couple of games in Japan and Iben we know hasn't played so Iben is in desperate need of some game time so he's going to play. Well the big thing that I picked up this barbarian SAA, these two games, are basically going to be to get the players who haven't played a bit give them some game time and rest some of those players who've played too much. On that subject, I bumped into Franco Mostert yesterday. I didn't approach him.

I'm too shy. But I saw him walking around with his family in a shopping center in Pretoria. And I thought, why is he at the alignment camp? And the next thing I was wondering about five lock, why not Roan Orkia? Why Loan the Jager?

But we're only talking about this SAA Barbarians two games, aren't we? Yeah, so So next Saturday, the night after the URC final. So Franco, I think, is one of those places that had a lot of game time in Japan. And Rossi knows that. So he's probably going to rest Franco.

And he mentioned Franco and said, you know what Franco can do. Franco's got a big engine. He will always. So he doesn't need to play Franco against the Barbas. He needs to give somebody else a chance.

So you can look at Ruben or maybe Ryan Lockyer. Ryan Lockyer will play the SA team. he might even captain the ss team that's because russie spoke quite a bit about riley and and his maturity and his leadership around the team he said he's not he's not vindgat he's just very mature for his age you know and he was remember the kid's only 20 you know or i i 90 he's still 19 because he's still leading the under 20 team the baby box still so that that's one of our future springboard captains russie really likes him so i can see riley coming in for a ebben or a Lourdes for the long term, because he plays at 5, so it'll be in Lourdes' place past beyond the 27 World Cup. So and he I can guarantee you I can guarantee you Raleigh is going to lead the SAA team Yeah and it Riley Norton not Riley Norkia Riley Norton apologies to all the viewers I do this. I have this habit of mixing up names.

Yeah, you know what? There wasn't much more that I could pick up from that. We actually saw some weird team, potential team floating around, but I don't think that was official. I mean, one of those teams that Riley Norton starting for the Springboks against the Barbarians. That's not an official team, is it?

No, no official teams. I've seen quite a few you write. But they're all fan teams. The reality is, if these fan sites, and there's more and more of them popping up, every guy with a cell phone now has his own website and his own YouTube page and all these things, and we know they're not making money because we're in the industry. The reality is, they're just fans, and they want, you know, some guy in Cape Town thinks Riley should now start it at lock.

No. Rossi is going to use that game to get players like Luit and Eamon, as we said, ready for England, because that's going to be our starting lock pairing for England. So Riley will captain the SRA team. That's where he will play. Those under 20 players in the squad, I can guarantee you a number of them will be playing for the SRA team so that they can get a feel for the Springbok setup.

They're training together. That's the other thing which I like about Rossi. He explains to you how it works. And he's not shy to speak. So he clearly said, these two teams are training together.

Everybody knows who's going to play for the A team already. Everybody knows who's going to play for the Springbok team already. Next Saturday and Port Elizabeth. So those guys train together all the time. He says the first time those two teams are going to split is going to be for the captains run on a Friday.

so the SRA team will be taken by Stick and Dion Davids and they will then go have a captain as an SRA team and then that coaching team and they will be separate and then on the spring box will be under Russi and Tony and those guys and they will train their own captain's run and the Saturday morning before the game the SRA team will leave the hotel earlier because they've got an earlier kickoff and the box will stay a bit longer so you don't really know those teams are picked Russ has already got his team in his head we can speculate all we like the best thing for me is I want to see how close I was I selected a couple of teams and I want to see how close I was so if you're desperate I'll give you my team yeah I want to hear it give you it so here's my Springbok team that I said is going to play the Barbers and I assumed all these players are fit and I think I'm still right because there's people who are asking with Malcolm Marks, Damien Willemse, Edwin van der Merwe, Jesse Creel, Andre Estreisen, Jason Colby, Marnie Lbok, Grant Williams. We know Grant's ready. Jasper Wisse, Peter Steff, the 2nd, Sioke Lisi captain, Lode Jager, Eben Edsebeth, Carlos Sadi, Malcolm Marks, Oxen Che. That's my starting 15. And then I've got the bench.

I'm not going to bother people with the bench. My SIA team is Quinn Horn, Jakko Williams, Lucanio Am Damon De Allende Jerenzo Julis Vuzi Moyo Faf De Tlerk Faf was in the press conference as well Pepsi Witelezi Ben Jason Dixon Paul De Villiers Riley Norton Captain Ruben van Herden Nietling Fusheer JJ Kotze and Chukou Chunu so that's that's my teams so let's see you know I mean when they when they name the teams next week we can come back to this and say you were 10 out, you were 20 out, you had nothing right. So there's already these guys that say, no, Damien, the Eleanor will start next to Jesse. And that's possible, you know. Somebody else will, you know, people said, no, Malcolm Marks didn't train today.

Rossi is keeping some guys on us, but Malcolm Marks is ready to play. So I think he's going to have, it's going to be, the starting 50 against the Barbers, a few bulls will come in. So that's the other thing he said, the bulls that are playing in this final, they will come in. because they match really he was very pertinent about that he said they are match ready and that's a significant thing about the the russi's press conference is that those bulls are all ready to play and he's not going to hide them and give him a week off and stuff he says they'll bring atmosphere they'll bring confidence into the team and they'll be ready to play so the changes will come around which bulls play is going to so obviously at fly off uh pollard will come into the picture money starts maybe pull out of the bench so that will change that my bench a bit uh scrub off uh i think uh it's the eight team so yeah maybe you're talking about the the england game now you're talking about the sa because the bulls can't play against the um zimbabwe correct yeah so when we talk to the sa to the england team so the sa team will be as close as possible with the exception of the Bulls because they're not available for the Barbers game. But after that, that would be the basis of the Springbok team for the SIA team for the England team to face England and the Bulls will come into the mix.

So for the England game so you know you can go we know Vili is not going to be there unless there's a lot of injuries around fullback you know we know 100 Pollard will come into the mix Scrumov will come into the mix your loose forwards were all into the mix so the loose forwards might be very different but although I can't see that the loose forwards might be in the SAA team well they won't be in the SAA team because there's no SAA team for the England game but they could be on the bench so the bench might look very different than the Barbers game at luck who knows maybe if there's an injury Ruane coming to the picture yeah so I mean it's going to be interesting and you've got Wilke you'll get Wilke that comes back Johan Groblo that comes back you know he can be on the bench so it's going to be an interesting selection for England so many springboks Geirad Steenekamp Jan Hendrik Wessels I mean the only Bulls player in the pack that's not a springbok or potential springbok is Ruan Vermaak and we know there's a crisis at four he might get the nod as well Kovac Wieser is going to be there Kovac Wieser will be on the bench Aldi Gloze Emreus Papir is there Keine Moody will be there there's a lot of them like you said Russi actually mentioned Kubis and he said Kubis is a four so Kubis will be in a group as a four so those guys will all immediately go into the Springbok group and I think the young the guys that will fall out will be once the Barbas and the SRA games are over I think those under 20 players will go back to the under 20s and start preparing for the baby box because they've now had a taste of the Springbok environment and they've had a game and they've showed what they can and can't do. So, yeah. Okay. The one thing that I took from this is the fact that Stick is going to be the coach of the SAA team and Rossi sort of hinted that towards the end of that conversation that most assistant coaches have ambitions to be head coaches Do you think that was an early sign of you know Stick maybe taking over one day from Rossi? It's not the first time that hint's been dropped.

You can put your house on it that Stick and Dion Davids will be in the running for the head coach. I think Stick will be the head coach and Dion will stay with the forwards. I think he's comfortable with being the forwards coach and remaining the forwards coach. But remember, Russ is still around until 31. So I think Stik will play a more prominent role.

Maybe a bit like he did with Jacques Nienaber, you know. Just go on the touchline and help assist Stik from the sideline. And it worked well with him and Jacques Nienaber in 23 in France. And I can't see why it can't work again with Stik. But almost certain that Stik is the next head coach after Russ.

Talking about Jacques Nienaber. We know what's happening in Ireland. And now Tony Brown suddenly... No, it's not suddenly. We all knew it was going to happen, but the official announcement caught us a little bit unaware.

So it's good at that. Rossi just laughed it off. He's very happy that he's actually going to New Zealand. They're happy for Tony. He's only got his two years down on a four-year contract kind of that thing.

You know, that's an interesting thing. But he also said there, and another little hint that he dropped, that they're already looking at potential candidates to replace Tony with. Who do you think are the potential ones? I think for me the most obvious one is Felix Jones. He was the attack coach when Joachim Ndabo was still there in 2019.

He can probably easily step up and do that as well because it looks like Felix Jones is sort of the jack of all trades in that team. Would you not look at Franco Smith? Yeah, no, definitely. Scotland is after him. We know Scotland is after him.

But it wouldn't surprise me for us to start talking to Franco for post-2027. But would Franco be happy to be an assistant coach? Yeah, that's a question. Are you asking about guys that he's talking to? I'm just talking about potential candidates.

That's what I'm saying. I think Franco's a good candidate. Will he accept it? That's the question. I think Franco, if you tell somebody, it's a bit like Tony.

Tony's not going there to be head coach for the All Blacks. He's going to be assistant. He knows that, but he wants to coach his own country. He gets a chance to coach the All Blacks. And I think Franco will be the same, you know.

Coach Scotland, coach the Springboks, you know. You have a chance. So, yeah. You know, it depends how happy Franco's family is in Scotland. Maybe they want a bit more of Blufentain's warm weather and sunny days.

So, who knows? But that's the one person I can think of outside of the current coaching setup. And Joach Nienabe, he's not an attack coach. but there's such a long history with him and Rossi, his contract ends before the World Cup, any chance of him rejoining the Screamhawks, do you think? Leicester said they're going to keep him for another year so they said he'll be back next season, so that means he's going to, yeah I suppose it ends just before the World Cup at the end of mid-year July 27th so it's potential, I don't think he'll be back for the World Cup, but post-World Cup he could be back given the love he receives from the Irish media.

Yeah. People calling him the devil. I mean, I've heard some absurd things. So then you get idiots who try to play it down and say, oh, in Ireland, it's a phrase, you know, the deal you make with the devil, you know, that's, you're calling him the devil. You know?

So anyway. Yeah, we had actually, we had several podcasts on that specific subject. We actually got an Irish speaking or Irish person to talk to us about that as well. So I think don't take it too literally. I don't really think he meant Jacques is the devil.

But I mean, yeah, if the shoe fits kind of a thing. But yeah, let's move on quickly to this URC final upcoming. I attended Loftus this morning to hear what Johan Ackermann's got to say. And what was interesting, I was there in person. There was also an online conversation afterwards.

But what was interesting is he's very confident, but not arrogant. there's a big difference here and I asked him specifically about the occasion because I thought you know I said to you two years ago when the Bulls played Glasgow I thought the Bulls were a little bit in awe they were a little bit you know big eyed and I think I thought I saw a little bit of that against Glasgow that the occasion got to them a little bit and I asked him how would he approach this because people are talking about this match coming up against Lens being almost Springboks versus Ireland to a degree it's not exactly the same I know that but the point is it's going to be a very intense match and how is he preparing that do you think the Bulls will be up for it, you know, mentally to take this fourth out of five finals and actually win the title for a change? I think they'll be up for it. There's some subtle changes. So, first of all, their loose forwards are very, very different.

They've got a flyer who's been there. So, as you know, Andre also had a press conference today. And you can see Andre's confidence. You know, he had an off day with the boot and he laughed it off. He says, oh yeah, you know, I had a horrible day.

It was terrible. but I'm getting back on the horse the loose forwards will be different I think yeah I think after Saturday last Saturday's win over Glasgow I asked Jorana exactly the same thing because he's played in so many finals already not just in with the Lions or Transvaal with the Lions he's played also in Japan so he's fully aware of what it takes in playoffs and yeah you know, both like he and Pollard said, is just go and enjoy the occasion. You know, if you win, you win. If you don't win, you don't win. But don't make it bigger.

And I think it's exactly what you want. He was like that with the Lions as well. At that stage, we couldn't understand it. And if you make too much, and that's what happens, you know, you hype the players up so bad. And maybe that was Jake's mistake.

You know, the good old days of having players bump their heads against the dressing room wall to get them hyped up is gone. You know, you need to, with a new year of professional players, you know, you need to find a different way. You know, just go out there and do what you've been doing. So I think Andre Pollard's message is the same thing. Go out there and do what we've been doing all season, the way we've been doing it all season.

It's worked. Why do you want to change it? I asked him, he was asked, one of the questions was, you know, several of the Bulls players last game, for example, Ruan Orkia has been there forever. Gatley Arons' last game, Wilco Lowe's last game. There's a couple of, you know, milestones and everything else.

And he just said he doesn't believe in doing that because when you make too much of an issue of it, like you just said now, too much of an occasion, and it falls short, it puts too much pressure on the team, for example. It's going to be just another game. And I thought that was quite a mature approach. He also talked about his past finals that he's been in. And interestingly enough, for Gloucester, that he coached in the final of the Challenge Cup, which I didn't even realise, they lost the game in the last minute for conversion after a try.

Otherwise they would have won They dominated the entire team and lost it in the last minute He talked about that trade card that Kwakka Smith received in the 2017 Super Rugby final the year before They played against Hurricanes in an actual almost Hurricane, a storm he called it. He's been through this. He's lost enough now. He wants to win. I can see it.

He's fired up. He wants to win this one. Also, Johanna's grounded in Envia. I like the way that he's not shy to put his faith forward. He's a very Christian grounded person.

That's important for a person who's like that. You shouldn't be shy to say you're a Christian. I'm very proud of the fact that Johan is like that. I think that's where he gets his calmness from because you understand that you don't overhap the players and you can keep them calm. If you think 21-3 at halftime or just before halftime, after 30 minutes, How do you keep the players calm?

All he said to them is, just make sure we score the next try. Then it's game on. He didn't go and say, no, we must score 20 points. He didn't. He just calmly said to them, listen, guys, just make sure we score the next try.

If we score the next try, it's game on. Because then you put doubt in Glasgow's mind and it happened. Because after 30 minutes, it was 21-3 and Glasgow never scored. For the next 50 minutes, Glasgow didn't score a single point. And the Bulls had other opportunities.

I mean, if we think Andre Pollard missed three penalties and a conversion, you know, it could have been a very different score. Or one of those penalties went over, they started on the halfway line, and who knows what could have happened there, you know. But I think the Bulls in general, that second half, they dominated. And tactically, that's the game. I mean, Pollard might not have kicked well at the post, but tactically, it was a masterclass from him.

And people don't always see that. They might have seen one of Willis' weird kicks or some weird passes and stuff, and they'll hop on about that. But they missed 80% of the game that the Bulls did well, and what they got them, the win in the end, because they played the second half perfectly. Yeah, that's what you said to us. I asked what was said at halftime, and we've spoken to some other players as well, and not much was said, because the coaches missed basically a minute to speak to them.

because they speak, they each have a minute and a half for themselves and they speak to the tech coach and the defense coach separately and then the head coach has a couple of words to say. But Johan dropped today and he said, Elric Lowe actually said, listen, it all depends on how we go out and how do we react. Do we go into our shell and sort of give up or do we go out there and play the game of our lives? And Elric actually was the one who said the motivating words, if I can call it that. That was quite interesting to me.

He's not the captain or anything, he's been the captain before, but he's definitely one of the leaders in the team. It's those senior players. That's what I'm saying. If you look at last year's team and you look at the loose forwards that's going to be in the final, they're very different. And this team, there's no injuries in the team as well.

So you know that this Bulls team is going to be a very different team to the one from last year's final. More calm, more mature, and more understanding of what they need to do in the final. So I don't think there'll be a wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights type of Bulls team. I think this is going to be a Bulls team that's going to give Lens the... So remember, the Bulls scrum is immense, you know.

Croke Park has got a very different surface to what the Stormers had at Aviva in Dublin, which is a very loose type of surface. So, you know, the Stormers couldn't scrum. They wanted to scrum, but they couldn't properly scrum. Maybe something was happening. maybe the referee didn't see things the reality is the Bulls have got a massive scrum and they will use it they've got really good playmakers and I'm sure Johan would work on the playmakers the decision makers and you know if you will I think the players that's going to be key for me will be Vili people can say what they like about him he's reading of the game he might be two yards slower but his reading of the game is brilliant.

He can still put other players into space, into places. And then Pollard's reading of the game, and then the set pieces. The Bulls' light-out will be good. The scrums will be massive. So, yeah, I think set pieces are going to be...

And the breakdown, of course, we know how Linser plays the breakdown. I think the Bulls are going to have to stack the breakdowns. When they carry the ball, they're going to have to make sure that they protect their own ball. One thing he also said, that's interesting, how he mentioned breakdowns. They said for the first time this season against Glasgow in the first half, the Bulls were slow to the breakdown.

And Glasgow managed to put them under pressure. So obviously they're going to be paying a lot of attention to that. But what's interesting to me is how the Bulls came back and started dominating. You know, we're talking about Lentz being the island team. Glasgow is pretty much a Scottish national team.

Not completely, but to a degree as well. And two years ago, the Bulls would not have been able to come back from that side. That far down. Last year in the final, I think they were 19-0 behind at halftime against Leinster. Never made it back into the game, scored one try.

But then again, it was a completely different team, a completely different environment. And one thing I can say for sure from personal experience, this is a happy Bulls team. I think that might just at the end of the day make the difference. As we know, you know, Jake and his assistant coaches didn't really get on well. We know that Andres Becker and Chris left when Johan came in.

He had problems with them as well. not as obvious as Jake had and some of the players didn't like Jake's attitude and I think Johan's different that man management is a big difference between Johan's team and Jake's team and I think I don't know if those two assistant coaches were the poison that poisoned the players or what the issue was but there was definitely an issue and Jake's now going Johan's got a very, very happy and they're all Christians I mean, you can see them after every match, win or lose, they pray in the coach's box afterwards. And that's their grounding, whether people like it or not. And it's not whether they're wrong or right. It's what grounds them, what keeps them solid, and what keeps them together.

It's because they've got similar backgrounds or similar beliefs, and that keeps them together. And a lot of the players, as you will know, are also Afrikaans Christians. And for them, it's important. For players like that, it's important. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, Jan, thank you for that, for this very short, impromptu podcast. I appreciate it, and we'll do it again next week. Thanks for making time for me. Thank you, Envia, and it's nice.

I mean, like I said, I missed our chats, and it's lucky to just chat like before it's changed. So, yeah, we'll probably have something next week for the final, have a proper analysis for the final, and until next week, yeah, cheers. Thank you.

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