Star DHL Western Province loose-forward Nizaam Carr won’t be playing in his team’s final Absa Currie Cup league match, but there is good reason for him to want to pull out something special for the play-off matches that will follow.
While the contracted Springboks won’t be playing in the deciding stages of the domestic competition, that does not mean that Bok coach Heyneke Meyer and national selectors Peter Jooste and Ian McIntosh won’t be studying the games closely.
The days may be gone where you select Boks out of the Currie Cup, but it can be used to confirm form shown in Super Rugby earlier in the year, and it just so happens that there will be a window of opportunity for new players on the upcoming November tour.
A squad of 36 will be selected in the week of the Currie Cup final for the four match tour, which starts on 8 November with a match against Ireland in Dublin and concludes three weeks later with a test against Wales at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. For that last match, the Boks will be losing as many as eight or nine overseas-based players from the selection equation because it falls outside of the IRB’s stipulated international window.
Like was the case with the last June test against Scotland in Port Elizabeth, which was when newcomers such as Handré Pollard and Oupa Mohoje got their first opportunities to wear the green and gold, that Cardiff game will give Meyer the opportunity to spread his net.
“We are pleased with the number of youngsters coming through and in the last test against Wales we are going to be without the overseas-based players so there will be big opportunities there for players on the fringes of selection to show us what they can do,” said Meyer after his team’s 27-25 win over the All Blacks at Ellis Park last week.
In addition to the overseas-based players being absent for the Welsh test, Fourie du Preez has been ruled out for the rest of the year so won’t be going on tour, it has been confirmed that Francois Louw won’t be touring, and Ruan Pienaar is considered highly unlikely to make it.
That means there is space for AN Other to be added as the third scrumhalf behind Francois Hougaard and Cobus Reinach, both of whom did well in the home leg of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship but who will be under pressure to prove they are the perfect fit for northern hemisphere conditions, where there might be a greater need for a good tactical kicking game.
Looking through the scrumhalves on the local circuit, there is no immediate obvious contender that springs to mind if Meyer is looking for a player who also has a strong kicking game. WP’s Louis Schreuder toured as the third scrumhalf in the corresponding tour last year and does fit the bill in terms of his style of play, but he was injured for much of the early season and hasn’t really progressed since last season, which was ended with a poor performance in the Currie Cup final.
He is not currently first choice at Province, though he will play on Saturday against the Sharks as Allister Coetzee is set to field a second string team.
Carr is the WP player most likely to benefit from the scheduling of the Welsh game outside of the international window, particularly if Louw, who is an overseas-based player anyway and wouldn’t be available for that last game, is out of the tour. Although he plays at No 8 for WP in the Currie Cup, Carr was an abrasive presence as the Stormers fetcher flank during Super Rugby (when Duane Vermeulen was Stormers No 8) and that utility value could bring him into the mix.
Meyer gave an indication that he is looking closely at 23-year-old Carr when he asked him to join the national squad in the week of the Cape Town test against Australia so that he could get used to the systems and culture in preparation for a later call-up.
Carr was named as Most Valuable Player at the Western Province Rugby Union Awards function earlier this week and is coming to the end of what he describes himself as a dream season. Perhaps one more big fling in the semifinal and possibly in the final will cement a chance to ensure his rugby year extends to the end of November and not just October.
Gurthro Steenkamp hasn’t played much part for the Boks recently but the France-based loosehead is still part of the squad. His unavailability for the Welsh test will mean a possible opportunity for a back-up loosehead, and if Meyer wants to take a development angle, there is surely no better candidate than young Thomas du Toit, the 19-year-old Sharks player nicknamed Thomas the Tank Engine.
Du Toit could well be playing at Newlands on Saturday as the Sharks have a chance of securing a home semifinal if they win and the Lions lose to the Free State Cheetahs on the same day, so coach Brad MacLeod-Henderson will want to have all hands on deck. However, Carr is likely to watch the game from the stands as the WP coach gives Sikhumbuzo Notshe to play in his preferred position of No 8.
Regular skipper Juan de Jongh (also unlikely to play against the Sharks) could be another WP player who can force his way into the selection mix as he was part of the extended group of 36 during the June internationals before illness forced him to return to Cape Town, and there is uncertainty over whether Jaque Fourie will be available to tour. As a Japanese- based player, Fourie won’t be available for the last test even if he has recovered from the injury that has kept him out for the entire international season thus far.
JJ Engelbrecht, who lost form this year along with the place in the squad that was his for most of last year, is another player who could benefit from Fourie’s absence – but he won’t be playing in the Blue Bulls’ remaining fixtures because he is a contracted Springbok.