Who should lead Coetzee's Boks?
One thing we do know is that the captain will not be someone who plays overseas. Springbok head coach Allister Coetzee revealed during the Springbok squad announcement that he is only looking at candidates based in South Africa.
"It is not ideal to have your captain based overseas and we are looking internally," said Coetzee.
"There is a leadership group which will work very closely with your national captain. In the event the South African-based captain has to leave the field then obviously there is nothing wrong with getting your overseas-based player to take over the leadership on the field."
Coetzee has selected just three overseas-based players for the June series – Steven Kitshoff (Bordeaux), Duane Vermeulen (Toulon) and Francois Louw (Bath).
The Springbok coach made it clear that if you want to play for the national team, you "would have to play within the boundaries of South Africa in future".
However, the coach revealed that SA Rugby has given him the go ahead to select overseas-based players if the need arises and Vermeulen and Louw are two such cases.
Although the duo are ruled out of the captaincy race, they will still form an invaluable part of Coetzee's leadership group.
"At this level of Test match rugby we need players with Test match experience in the form of Vermeulen and Louw," said Coetzee said
So who are the players in the race to be captain?
Adriaan Strauss, Patrick Lambie, Tendai Mtawarira, Frans Malherbe and Warren Whiteley seem the likely candidates to be captain. All of those players are in a leadership role at their respective Super Rugby franchises.
Lambie might be a long shot now given Elton Jantjies' form. The two will be battling for the Springbok No.10 jersey with Jantjies being the frontrunner at the moment.
Strauss seems to be the strongest candidate at the moment as he will almost certainly start all the Springboks' matches, given the lack of experience between the other hookers in the squad.
Coetzee will have a lot of hard choices and choosing the right person to lead the Boks through to 2019 is one of them.
By Warren Fortune
@FortuneWarren
@rugby365com
