Faf de Klerk has 60 Test appearances to his name, having earned the majority of these caps under the leadership of Rassie Erasmus since 2018.
However, the 33-year-old only featured in three Tests last year, and has appeared as a substitute against just Italy and Georgia this season as issues with both fitness and form have seen him fall by the wayside.
With Cobus Reinach still performing at a top level as the ‘veteran’ scrumhalf in the squad, and Grant Williams and Morne van den Berg consistently making an impact, De Klerk has clearly slipped down the pecking order.
Rassie explains Faf absence
In the latest squad for the end-of-year tour, De Klerk remained out of the mix, while he was also omitted from the ‘standby list’.
However, Erasmus has said that this is not to suggest the double World Cup winner has simply been discarded by the Springboks.
“Faf is definitely part of our plans,” Erasmus said. “We just felt that it would be better for him to get regular minutes at his club (in Japan) rather than sitting out during this window. They’ve got four warm-up games lined up this month, and he’ll benefit more from that.”
Canon are set to play Kyuden Voltex on Sunday before facing the Panasonic Wild Knights (15 November), Ricoh Black Rams (22 November) and Urayasu D-Rocks (29 November).
“Unless they’ve been playing regularly for us, the guys in Japan wouldn’t have had much rugby recently,” Erasmus said. “In previous end-of-year tours, against teams like France and Ireland, it sometimes felt like we started slowly because the Japanese-based players hadn’t played much. This time, we wanted to fix that.”
Latest touring squad
Forwards: Lood de Jager (Wild Knights), Ben-Jason Dixon (DHL Stormers), Pieter-Steph du Toit (Toyota Verblitz), Thomas du Toit (Bath), Eben Etzebeth (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Johan Grobbelaar (Vodacom Bulls), Jean Kleyn (Munster), Siya Kolisi (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Wilco Louw (Vodacom Bulls), Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears), Franco Mostert (Honda Heat), Ox Nche (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Ruan Nortje (Vodacom Bulls), Zachary Porthen (DHL Stormers), Kwagga Smith (Shizuoka Blue Revs), RG Snyman (Leinster), Gerhard Steenekamp (Vodacom Bulls), Marco van Staden (Vodacom Bulls), Boan Venter (Edinburgh), Jan-Hendrik Wessels (Vodacom Bulls), Jasper Wiese (Urayasu D-Rocks).
Backs: Kurt-Lee Arendse (Vodacom Bulls), Damian de Allende (Wild Knights), Andre Esterhuizen (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (DHL Stormers), Ethan Hooker (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Cheslin Kolbe (Suntory Sungoliath), Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles), Manie Libbok (Kintetsu Liners), Canan Moodie (Vodacom Bulls), Handre Pollard (Vodacom Bulls), Cobus Reinach (DHL Stormers), Morne van den Berg (Lions), Edwill van der Merwe (Hollywoodbets Sharks), Damian Willemse (DHL Stormers), Grant Williams (Hollywoodbets Sharks).
