Rassie Erasmus will spread his selection net beyond players invited to Springbok alignment camps

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has not closed the door on players who were not invited to the alignment camp held in Cape Town this week.

Notable omissions from the 54-man camp included Stormers No.8 Evan Roos, Bulls hookers Johan Grobbelaar and Akker van der Merwe, Stormers hookers André-Hugo Venter and Joseph Dweba, and Sharks loose forward Phepsi Buthelezi.

“There are some guys we did not pick because we know them already. They know the way we want to play and what we are trying to do,” Erasmus said after the camp.

“There will be guys outside this group that will play for the Boks this year.”

Those words will be a reprieve for the uninvited after Erasmus invited 84 players to the March camp before culling 30 for the latest camp.

Erasmus added that some of the players who participated in the two-day event this week will not be selected.

“Not all newcomers will play for the Boks this year, and that was made very clear to them,” the coach said. There were some younger guys that we just wanted to have a look at. We wanted to get to know them.

“Overall, it went really well,” Erasmus continued. “We had a solid group of 36 players in person, with the balance (of the 54 invited) overseas or guys that could not be here because they are being treated for injuries.

“All the coaches and departments shared our plan on how we are going to operate this year.

“In this camp, we looked specifically at how we are going to do things on the field. We are getting close to the actual rugby stuff.”

Erasmus said that he cannot put the players on the training field until the United Rugby Championship is over.

“Obviously, there is still franchise rugby to be played, and we wish the players well for the URC play-offs. But overall, there is no player who can say they don’t have all the information.

“We are looking forward to our next get-together, because that is when we will get on the field. We haven’t done anything on the field since the last game of last year.”

Erasmus said this camp had made the approaching season real. The Boks open their account for the year with a friendly against the Barbarians in Cape Town on June 28.

“The nice thing is that we have had two alignment camps, with a lot of it done virtually,” he said. “There has been so much planning, and a lot of it has been around doing some stuff differently.

“In this regard, I think we are going to see the influence of (attack coach) Tony Brown and (defence coach) Jerry Flannery, as they are now into their second year.

“There is a lot of excitement, and now the challenge is to put it together on the field.

“We have done so much ‘training’ with our computer programme (Erasmus has pioneered a computer rugby game called Outfox).

“We have had walk-throughs, because we don’t want to injure guys while the URC is still on.

“There is enthusiasm about the things we want to change, so we can’t wait to get into camp after the URC and physically put the planning into practice.”

Erasmus said he would always expect players to be excited about participating in camps.

“It goes without saying that the new guys were thrilled to be there, but you also want the older guys to get excited. If a guy is not excited to be here, then we made the wrong decision to invite him. There is a lot of motivation for us this year.

“We want to see where we are in the world currently, and where we want to be positioned by the time of the World Cup (in Australia in 2027).

“At the end of this year, there is a World Cup draw for the different pools, so there are different reasons to be excited.

“The important thing is that everyone is hungry to buy into the plan of how we want to evolve.”