Coach Rassie Erasmus is likely to give these two  players their Springboks debuts against Georgia at the Mbombela Stadium 

More Bok debuts planned for Georgia

Coach Rassie Erasmus is likely to give two more players their Springboks debuts against Georgia at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit on Saturday.

Following a more satisfactory outing against Italy in the second Test in Port Elizabeth, where the Boks obliterated the Azzurri 45-0, Erasmus is likely to continue with his squad rotation as part of his broader plan to build depth for the Rugby Championship and a demanding end-of-year tour.

Edinburgh loosehead prop Boan Venter and Scarlets hooker Marnus van der Merwe are in line to get their first Bok caps against the Georgians this weekend. Van der Merwe has appeared in the green and gold this season, when he came off the bench against the Barbarians in Cape Town. But that match didn’t have Test match status.

Erasmus says it’ll be good for them to get their Springbok debuts on Saturday.

“I think we would love to give a few guys their first Test. Boan and Marnus should be in the picture,” said the Bok mentor, who once again has the rugby world talking following some innovative moves in the second Test against Italy.

“We’ve taken the entire group to Mbombela and will possibly only keep some squad members here until Wednesday. After the Test against Georgia, the entire squad will get a week off. We’ll probably then call in around 35 players before we play against Australia.”

The Springboks begin their Rugby Championship campaign on 16 August against the Wallabies in Johannesburg, followed by the second Test in Cape Town a week later.

Georgia have been in South Africa and played a warmup match against the Free State Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Friday night, which they lost 24-20. But Erasmus didn’t read too much into that result, noting that the Georgians had rested a handful of their first-choice players.

Read more:

Nigel Owens weighs in on Springboks tactical controversies as ex-Test ref reveals the ‘problem’ with Rassie Erasmus’ innovations

Former Test referee Nigel Owens has suggested that both of the Springboks’ innovations could have been penalised in their victory over Italy.

South Africa hammered Italy in Gqeberha on Saturday to complete a 2-0 series win, but much of the talk afterwards centred on the hosts’ decision to bring in some tactical tweaks.

That included purposefully infringing from the kick-off in order to have a scrum and an open field ‘lineout’, which entailed lifting a player in the air and setting up a maul during phase play

Nigel Owens’ view

It has stirred much debate and well respected ex-referee Owens had his say on the matter.

The Welshman felt that there was a “problem” with the latter, although he did not state whether it infringed any specific law.

“The problem with that play is that you are unable to tackle the player in the air or his support jumpers so you can not defend it or compete,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Owens was far more certain on the kick-off routine which saw Springboks centre Andre Esterhuizen catch the ball in an offside position following Manie Libbok’s chip ahead.

“PK for sure”, he wrote, pointing to the fact that it was a deliberate offence.

Although a scrum will be awarded if the ball fails to go 10 metres from the kick-off or a player is unintentionally offside, the former official states that a penalty can be awarded if it is done on purpose.

That may therefore be clarified by World Rugby over the coming weeks with Rassie Erasmus once again pushing the boundaries.

Incredible Rassie Erasmus knowledge

The Boks boss has an excellent understanding of the lawbook and is always looking at ways of finding loopholes in order to gain an advantage for his side.

“We wanted to get the scrum badly to get into the game early on. We felt last week that Italy got a lot of channel one balls at scrum time,” Erasmus revealed post-match.

However, it did not go to plan with referee Andrew Brace awarding a free-kick to the visitors after the South Africa front-row infringed at the scrum.

“We make a lot of little plans that sometimes don’t pay off, that people don’t know of. Sometimes people just see the things that do work, and this time it backfired against us,” South Africa’s head coach added.

“We had a plan, but then we had the free-kick against us. It was a good plan in theory, but a bad plan from a practical point of view.”