Rassie explains omission of 'ultimate team man' Grobbelaar
INTERVIEW: Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus explained why he did not select Bulls hooker Johan Grobbelaar for the European leg of the Nations Championship.
Erasmus and co instead opted to list seasoned pro Malcolm Marx and Jan-Hendrik Wessels as the primary hookers alongside utility forward Marco van Staden, who can also cover the No.2 position.
And there’s good reason for it, as the Boks’ brain trust opted for this selection with certain checkboxes in mind.
Erasmus credited Grobbelaar for his unselfishness and team-first mentality despite getting the short end of the stick when it comes to team selection.
“We [as coaches] were quite honest in the conversations we had around Johan Grobbelaar,” Erasmus said on Monday.
“If I have to give a guy an award for being the team player of the year, it would go to Grobbelaar.
“As a player, if you’re in a team for the whole year and work your socks off to play, and a guy like Deon [Fourie] comes in and faces the All Blacks and wins alongside Grobbelaar without him even playing, because he helped Fourie at training.
“You win the last three Greatest Rivalry Tests with Fourie, and everyone sees the glory, but not many see the sadness for a guy like Johan Grobbelaar.
“Guys get player of the match awards from commentators, but many times our internal player of the match is Grobbelaar, who just accepts that he gets his one big opportunity against Australia in a match we did very poorly, and that’s including myself.
“But that’s the kind of guy you know you can take to a World Cup.”
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Not out of the Springbok mix by any means
The Bok mentor further explained why he chose Van Staden and Wessels for the European leg of the Nations Championship.
“We certainly could’ve brought Johan Grobbelaar on this tour, but we wanted to force ourselves into a position where we know we can dabble around with the versatility of a guy like Marco van Staden.
“We as coaches felt that we know 100 percent what we have in Grobbelaar. If we’re heading to a World Cup tomorrow and Malcolm Marx is injured, then he [Grobbelaar] would definitely be in the mix.
“We didn’t want to bring him on a tour, and Marco [van Staden] doesn’t get an opportunity to play hooker. Jan-Hendrik isn’t just considered at hooker, but we do have very good loosehead props.
“Grobbelaar knows if we had to select a World Cup squad, he’d most likely be on the aeroplane with us.
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“I’m not saying he would definitely be there, but we want to place ourselves in a position with Marco van Staden, Malcolm Marx and Jan-Hendrik Wessels as hookers, and we don’t dabble with Wessels at prop and hooker – these are our three hookers.”
“If you bring a fourth hooker with you on tour, it becomes tempting to play Wessels at loosehead prop.
“So we deliberately placed ourselves in this position. We know what we have in Grobbelaar, but we want to test the other two guys [Van Staden and Wessels] under pressure against three very good opponents.
“That was our school of thought: Grobbelaar doesn’t deserve to not be selected, but he also doesn’t deserve to come on tour and be the fourth-choice hooker and never get game time.
“So we want to see if we can survive with these three hookers in a pressure-cooker situation, and should Grobbelaar get injured in future, we will know if these guys step up and do the job.”
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