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TALKING POINT: Rassie's plan, SA Rugby's incredible pipeline means success can continue indefinitely

rugby21 July 2026 07:55| © SuperSport
By:Brenden Nel
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A SuperSport tweet that flashed across my screen on Monday must have brought a smile to any South African fan reading it. My grin widened as I looked at it.

The Springboks are the first side in history to hold Back-to-Back World Cup titles, Back-to-Back Junior World Championships and Back-to-Back Sevens World Championships all at the same time.

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It’s a statement worth reading again. A statement not only of unbelievable achievement, but a statement of just how golden an age of rugby we are in now.

But the challenge is in the statement as well. The challenge to stay at the top against a chasing pack and a tendency in sports to want to see a dominant team fail is always there.

And yet, that statement is just amazing to read.

It is a testament to the hard work behind the scenes of so many individuals who often don’t get the credit, and so much planning that goes on.

MASTER PLAN

Yes, it is true that Rassie Erasmus’ masterplan with the Boks and the other structures has been a rousing success, but it takes a village, as they say to get to a point like this and Erasmus will be the first to note the work behind the scenes of a lot of individuals at SA Rugby.

Dave Wessels’ appointment as High Performance Manager is a perfect example of this. Wessels used to coach at UCT with Kevin Foote, the current Junior Boks coach and the duo moved to coach the Western Force, and later the Melbourne Rebels, building up an incredible amount of rugby IP before returning home to South Africa.

Foote has now won back to back Junior World Championships and has aligned the pipeline into something increasingly special that is building towards a massive future for the young talent in the country.

Wessels has been behind the Under-23 competition, seen as a bridging gap from Under-20 to senior rugby and preparing more stars for greater competition across the board. The focus is to make sure that there is enough talent coming through that can step in at any moment into a Springbok jersey.

PIPELINE STARTS EARLY

Those players are identified at Under-16 level and put into a pipeline, given the necessary support in terms of nutrition and guidance, and developed into professional rugby players early.

Then, as we heard last week again from Erasmus, those players enter the Bok environment at the alignment camps, getting them up to speed with plans, getting to know coaches and learning the ropes from more experienced Boks.

By the time they enter the test environment, it isn’t such a new experience, and it is working.

Erasmus said that they don’t slow down the pace for the younger players - and at times it has worked against them, but in the long run it has worked wonders for the younger players who are exposed to international rugby.

Zach Porthen, for instance, was an average scrummager in Under-20 ranks but his improvement since joining the Boks has been remarkable. Vusi Moyo’s debut last week was a bit nervy but both he and Jaco Williams were good overall in their first taste of international rugby.

INTENSE TRAINING SESSIONS

"I've been part of coaching teams where you slow down the pace of the training sessions so the older guys can be available on Saturday," Erasmus said last week in Durban. "But then you've got a great team on paper, but the training session intensity wasn't great."

The decision has a dual purpose as the older players need to give the same output despite getting older - which allows Erasmus to see where they are at all times, and no player can hide behind a reputation.

The younger players need to step it up right away and are quickly - away from the test arena - introduced to the standards they need to fulfill for test rugby.

“If you keep the intensity really high and those guys don't get injured, then they're not too old to play," Erasmus explained.

"We only look at the output. Your age is actually irrelevant if you have the same output as the youngster."

OLDER GUYS NEED TO KEEP THE PACE

"If some of the older guys start struggling with the pace of the game or the pace of the training sessions, you'll see some of the younger guys stay with us in the training sessions. Then we believe we get the best of both worlds."

It's hard to argue the process is working. The Junior Boks look good enough to take a step up to senior rugby and the Boks keep on winning.

The challenge comes in that other nations see what you are doing and will adapt. The All Blacks are currently looking to blood new stars and will be desperate to make an impression in South Africa when they arrive in a few weeks’ time.

All of that will mean that the pipeline will be tested, and will have to take pressure. But that is what has gotten SA Rugby to this point, and what will take it forward.

The future of SA Rugby is in unbelievable shape and everything points to the fact that - if handled as well as it has until now - this golden era of rugby can continue for a long time to come.

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