While Springboks captain Siya Kolisi will not be on the field battling Argentina in their Rugby Championship match on Saturday, he won’t be able to take it easy either.
Instead, Kolisi will be in the Springboks’ coach’s box for the match in Santiago del Estero (11pm kickoff) where he will get a taste of what happens off the field during a Test match.
Coach Rassie Erasmus said on Tuesday night that messages from the coach’s box get relayed via former Bok No 8 Duane Vermeulen onto the pitch to the likes of Kolisi and the decision-makers on the field.
Erasmus wants to give Kolisi an idea of how they arrive at ideas during the match, and to give him a better understanding when processing it on the field. A few years ago Vermeulen was also sat in the coach’s box while still playing.
“The one thing we also want to do is get Siya in the coach’s box. We have got Duane on the side who relays the messages to Siya on the field, but he actually doesn’t know what is happening in the coach’s box,” Erasmus said.
“We really want to give him a feel of how do we get to a decision and how we get the message down, so he understands the whole process from the coach’s box to Duane.
“The moment Duane sat there two years ago, he had an idea of how to interpret information. We hope to do the same with Siya this weekend.”
Meanwhile, Erasmus confirmed that Kolisi will play in the Springboks’ final Rugby Rugby Championship match against Argentina in Mbombela next weekend before having surgery on his fractured nose.
Kolisi suffered the injury in the first match against the All Blacks at Ellis Park and played through the pain in the second match in Cape Town.
“Siya was brought here not to play, but to be on standby if somebody gets injured. But also to help lead the team off the field while we are preparing for this important game,” said Erasmus.
“Siya will go for the surgery after the match at Mbombela. It’s not a fracture that need to be set after two weeks exactly. So he can still play next week and then get it reset.
“It can’t be done before two weeks and not later than six weeks, so it’s still in that time frame. It will be fixed after the Mbombela Test match.”
@JohnGoliath82