Ken Borland

Lukhanyo Am will captain a shadow Springbok side dressed up as SA A against the British and Irish Lions in Cape Town on Wednesday and the captaincy could also be on loan to him for the first Test on July 24 after director of rugby Rassie Erasmus admitted that those players who are currently Covid-positive and isolating will be in a race against time to make that match.

Regular captain Siya Kolisi is one of the players currently in quarantine.

The numerous Covid infections in the Springbok camp led to the second Test against Georgia being cancelled, and Erasmus admitted that that has forced them to pick many of the players they have pencilled in for the first Test for Wednesday night’s game.

“It depends on how the players progress through the Return-to-Play protocol and some of them will definitely be available from Wednesday and Thursday next week. Guys like Frans Steyn and Handre Pollard might make it because they tested positive really early. And some guys can just slot into the team, while others need more time to get their engines running. For them it will be touch and go.

“Losing the second Georgia Test has been massive and it would have been much easier if we had had that game and the SA A one. But we have a lot of knowledge about some of the players, we know their class and how they react under pressure, so for us, it’s not so much about gelling as about match fitness because it’s a bit of a worry for some guys how long it’s been since they last played,” Erasmus said on Monday.

Erasmus is also clearly trying to convince the British and Irish Lions to agree to Saturday’s tour match also being between them and an SA A side, instead of the Stormers. But like an over-enthusiastic puppy getting a paw to the nose, Lions coach Warren Gatland made it clear in his concurrent press conference that he was not in favour of that.

So Erasmus could well be left hoping his team has enough conditioning in the kitty from their three-week camp in Bloemfontein and the single Test against Georgia to match the Lions’ impressive build-up to the Test series.

“We had three weeks of good intensity training in Bloemfontein and the plan then was two Tests against Georgia and the SA A game to be ready and we could not have asked for more than that. So now we have lost one week of training and one match. But after seven days in their hotel rooms, the guys shouldn’t totally go to pieces and get out of shape.

“But I’m sure Warren Gatland wold like to play against the best possible Springbok team and the safest thing medically would be for SA A to play again against the Lions on Saturday. We have been in a totally hard bubble and we are all negative. I’m sure they would not be afraid to play us again and that would be the best preparation for us to provide good competition in the Tests against the Lions,” Erasmus said.

With so much uncertainty around at the moment, it is a good thing that Am has temporarily taken over the captaincy because he is a leader who provides a haven of calm.

SA A team – Willie le Roux, Cheslin Kolbe, Lukhanyo Am, Damian de Allende, Sbu Nkosi, Morne Steyn, Faf de Klerk, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Marco van Staden, Franco Mostert, Eben Etzebeth, Trevor Nyakane, Joseph Dweba, Steven Kitshoff. Bench: Coenie Oosthuizen, Malcolm Marx, Vincent Koch, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Rynhardt Elstadt, Herschel Jantjies, Jesse Kriel, Damian Willemse.

The Springboks returned to training on Sunday but without captain Siya Kolisi who returned a positive Covid test and there will now be a race against time to get him through the return-to-play protocols in time for the first Test against the British and Irish Lions on July 24.

While the entire Springbok squad has been isolating for the last week, the return-to-play protocols can take more than a week and in some cases players have been out of action for three-to-five weeks.

With five other positive cases amongst the players, the home team’s resources are also going to be stretched for the SA A match against the Lions that is still scheduled to happen on Wednesday night, with the squad heading off to Cape Town on Sunday afternoon. Loose forward Dan du Preez, prop Ox Nche, hookers Bongi Mbonambi and Scarra Ntubeni, and wing Makazole Mapimpi are also all in isolation.

Prop Vincent Koch, wing Sbu Nkosi, locks Marvin Orie and Lood de Jager, centre Francois Steyn, flyhalf Handre Pollard and prop Frans Malherbe have also had a brush with Covid in the last week. Bulls loosehead prop Lizo Gqoboka and Sharks hooker Fez Mbatha have been added to the squad.

Head coach Jacques Nienaber has also tested positive and director of rugby Rassie Erasmus will now take over the reins in training in Cape Town. But Nienaber refuses to be negative.

“We are delighted to be able to return to the field and resume our preparations for the Lions series. It has been a challenging week with the Test against Georgia, which was important for us with an eye on preparing to face the British & Irish Lions, cancelled and the entire squad self-isolating for a few days as a preventative measure, so the players cannot wait to get back on the park.

“But these are extraordinary times and we have to adapt as a team, and I have to commend the players and management for that. We are a tight-knit coaching team and everyone takes responsibility in their respective roles. It is also great to have Rassie steering the ship while I am away. He has been part of the system for several years and he guided these players to the Rugby World Cup title, so the team is in great hands,” Nienaber said.

The spotlight is once again on the Springboks’ Covid protocols and the amount of lux shining on them will only be higher this time as Lood de Jager has now returned a positive Covid test, causing the team’s training on Monday to be cancelled and the entire squad returning to isolation.

SA rugby issued a statement on Monday confirming that lock De Jager, who is currently rehabilitating from a broken tibia, had tested positive and had had close contact with several members of the squad, leading to the complete shutdown of activities, pending the results of further PCR testing and a review by the Medical Advisory Group.

Monday’s positive test follows three players suffering the same fate the previous weekend. One of those tests – that of scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies – was later shown to be a false positive and he played off the bench in the first Test against Georgia, but Vincent Koch and S’bu Nkosi both had to go into quarantine and close contacts such as Lukhanyo Am and Makazole Mapimpi were ruled out of last weekend’s match.

But on that occasion the Springboks were able to resume training on the Monday afternoon.

De Jager is one of the overseas-based players and was meant to be making progress in his rehabilitation to the extent that the management expected him to return to full training soon.

The desperately unfortunate 28-year-old will now have to be kept apart from the team he has worked so hard to rejoin.

The Springboks are meant to be playing the second Test against Georgia on Friday night, with the series against the British and Irish Lions starting on July 24.

The Lions Series Medical Advisory Group has found that there has been no slip-up in the Springboks’ Covid protocols and the squad was given the green light to resume training on Monday afternoon, despite two positive tests as they assembled in Johannesburg over the weekend.

“In light of … the strict precautionary measures taken by the team and the effective isolation protocols since the squad assembled, the Springboks can resume their training programme from Monday afternoon”, SA Rugby said in a statement issued on Monday.

The Lions Series Medical Advisory Group is made up of medical experts from both South Africa and the four Home Nations, and both CEOs, SA Rugby’s Jurie Roux and Lions managing director Ben Calveley, sit on the panel.

There were initially three positive tests reported, but scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies, who has already been through a bout of Covid, was confirmed as being a false positive and will return to training. He is therefore likely to feature in the 23-man squad for the first Test against Georgia on Friday, but wing Sbu Nkosi and prop Vincent Koch will miss out because they have been infected by the virus, although they are asymptomatic.

Cape Town media have not passed up the opportunity to speculate that the entire Lions tour could be moved from Covid-ravaged Gauteng, but Bulls CEO Edgar Rathbone, whose Loftus Versfeld stadium is set to host the first Test against Georgia and then the Bulls’ match against the Lions on July 10, dismissed the reports.

“We still have all the branding up in the stadium, we’re going ahead with preparations for Friday’s Test and next week’s game against the British and Irish Lions. There have been no discussions with us about moving the tour matches out of Gauteng,” Rathbone told The Citizen on Monday.

The Springboks will announce the team to play Georgia, their first Test since winning the World Cup final in November 2019, on Tuesday.

The Lions tourists flew into O.R. Tambo International Airport earlier on Monday.