Rise of young guns leaves Boks well stocked at flyhalf, says Rassie

The meteoric rise of Junior Springbok stars Vusi Moyo and Yaqeen Ahmed has ensured the Springboks’ abundant stocks at flyhalf will be overflowing in the years ahead, SA coach Rassie Erasmus says.

Moyo made his senior debut when the Boks whipped Wales 43-0 in Durban on Saturday and Ahmed played a starring role for the Junior Boks when they beat France 16-5 in the Junior World Cup final in Georgia on the same day.

Apart from the young guns, Handre Pollard is recovering well from a hamstring injury and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is expected to return to action when the Boks face Argentina in Buenos Aires on August 8.

In addition, Erasmus can call on the services of experienced Manie Libbok who replaced Moyo in the 47th minute in Durban.

Asked how he felt Moyo had performed on debut against Wales, Erasmus said: “He definitely played well.

“You can see there were nerves. I don’t know if other people would see that.

“However, that’s normal.

“He is the youngest ever to play for the Springboks in the No 10 jersey.

“I think he’s something like six months younger than Patrick Lambie was when he made his debut, so to make a debut against a tier one nation is tough for a 20-year-old guy.

“He’s a really accurate kicker, he kicks off really well, but then you get into a Test match like this with a lot of people.

“When the ball is wet, and suddenly you don’t kick it into the corners, you don’t kick it on the spot with the kick-offs, and then after the first or second Test match you’re tired because the pressure gets to you.

“I think he handled it extremely well.

“You could see in the second half his (Moyo’s) tyres were getting pap, and that is when we made the swap.”

Erasmus also praised Ahmed who excelled for the Junior Boks in Georgia.

“Yaqeen is another wonderful player,” he said.

“We would have loved to have had him in the mix as well (for Wales), but we already felt so bad keeping Vusi here, and they (the Junior Springboks) couldn’t play him in the final.

“Look, we have Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu coming back from injury ahead of the match against Argentina. He will play against the Pumas.

“Handre Pollard pulled his hamstring against Scotland and was not ready for this match, but he is fit now.

“For this game against Wales, we did not have Sacha or Handre, and we did not want to start Manie.

“At the end of the day, we had two flyhalves out, and we wanted to see Vusi as the next flyhalf, bearing in mind that we also wanted to look at Yaqeen Ahmed, who is an exceptional flyhalf but on duty in Georgia with the SA Under-20 team.

“It was next man up. We did not want to move Damian (Willemse) up for this game.

“We wanted to see how Vusi would go.”

Erasmus said a squad of 26 would be sent to South America while a group of 15 or 16 players would remain behind with some coaches to prepare for Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry against New Zealand in August and September.