Director of rugby Jake White says that all his Springboks stars will be heading abroad for the matches despite other South African teams giving their players time off after their Rugby Championship success. This after White named what he described as his ‘strongest team’ in four years for the clash against Ulster.

Sharks stars Siya Kolisi, Vincent Koch and Eben Etzebeth are among the players who are enjoying holidays after the Rugby Championship but White fielded the likes of Kurt-Lee Arendse, Ruan Nortje, Elrigh Louw and Gerhard Steenekamp despite the fact that they played most of the matches for the Springboks.

The Bulls boss has explained the reasoning behind his decision to take his Springboks with him for the clashes in Wales and Italy as he attempts to balance the need to keep the Bulls’ momentum but also keep the players fresh for the November internationals.

How many Springboks will tour with the Bulls?

“All of them,” White said when asked how many of his Boks will go on tour.

“It’s one of the difficult things because I just think it’s important that if they don’t play for three weeks and then they have a two-week camp that means for five weeks they don’t play any rugby.

“And then they play Scotland, so I’m going to have to manage them.”

He further explained that the timings of the call-ups also factored into his thinking as some of the Bulls players that were involved with the Springboks were not there from the start of the year.

“A guy like Ruan Nortje had four weeks off and he got called in late, Elrigh Louw had time off and got called in late so it’s not a necessity that they have to have leave now,” he added.

“What it is between now and the end of April, I think we have got to give them the time that they need in terms of if it’s three they need five if it’s four they need four and over Christmas there’s two weeks.

“There are a couple of games where we can rotate the squad and give them weeks off but that’s all dependent on injuries obviously, but I mean we need to build momentum and we need to get players playing.”

Doubt over who will be selected

Rassie Erasmus has heavily rotated his squad throughout the year and has not been shy to hand new players opportunities.

This also has White questioning who will feature in his Boks squad for the Autumn Nations Series which makes it difficult for the Bulls boss to plan as well. Because the side is going on a three-week tour, if a player does not tour with the team they could spend over a month without playing.

It’s an interesting debate and the other day, I asked which Springboks squad is going on tour. Is it the same squad, is it a new squad and I can’t rotate a guy let’s use Elrigh [Louw] and Cameron [Hanekom] as an example, which one is touring and if I leave one and he doesn’t tour then I’ve basically wasted an opportunity to play him for three weeks on tour,” he said.

“It’s not a sort of attack on anybody, I’m going to make sure that we give them enough time, I’m going to give them between now and April they’ll have time off. I’ve got certain injuries that will be back in three, four, five weeks’ time, therefore I can rotate the squad again. But I’m going to keep trying to build the team as much as we can.”

He added: “It’s important to understand the Bulls have got a three-week tour and then there’s a Bok tour and then we go again for two weeks, we play Connacht away and we play Saracens away in the first round of the Champions Cup.

“So if I’m really unfair on a player then he could be away for 11 weeks and that is also not fair on a rugby guy who’s got a young family. I look at a guy like Gerhard [Steenekamp] who has a young baby and Marco [van Staden] has a one-year-old and some guys are newly married.”

Finding a ‘win-win’

The 60-year-old adds that he will need to manage his squad in the coming months and he won’t be letting the players decide when they take time off.

“I’m going to have to find a way in which we get a win-win but I will say that every player at the Bulls knows that he doesn’t want to just manage himself for Test rugby, he wants to manage himself for the Bulls and he wants to make sure that he gives the Bulls every opportunity for him to do well for the Bulls,” he said.

“I can’t ask for anything more than that when I go into a changeroom and every player says ‘I want to play for the Bulls and I want to make sure that I give the club everything I want or that you need’.”