Scrumhalf Morne van den Berg put in an assured performance in what was an underwhelming Springbok display in the first Test against Italy.
The nuggety No 9 scored two tries in a 55-minute shift to remind coach Rassie Erasmus that he’s a real contender for that jersey ahead of the Rugby Championship.
The man who replaced him on Saturday night, Faf de Klerk, told SuperSport that Van den Berg’ quality is shining through.
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“He’s a fantastic player,” said the 59-Test veteran.
“I’m really glad he’s taking the opportunities he’s getting. He’s doing really well for the Lions and showing his quality now. He’s a great guy and wants to learn as much as he can, so it’s always awesome having that guy in the squad.”
Looking ahead to next weekend, De Klerk says the squad as a whole will need to give an honest assessment of what went wrong in Pretoria.
“There’s going to be disappointment in our performance. There was some good stuff and some bad things we can work on. Credit to Italy, they really made it hard for us, especially at the breakdown. We couldn’t get that momentum going, and I thought their forwards were phenomenal. Definitely some things we’ll need to look at in the week and fix before the next Test.”
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After the match, Erasmus expressed his frustration at his team’s performance and said he may need to re-look the planned selections for the second Test at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
“Internally we’ve announced that 13, 14 players that will definitely get a run next week, and that we’d build the bench or starting line-up around those guys,” he said.
“We won’t discard those guys but some of them might move to the bench, some of the real standout players who played today might start again.”
Photo: Gordon Arons/Gallo Images
