Ten minutes, and a broken jaw
Cheslin Kolbe did not last the opening quarter of an hour in Soweto. The outside back broke his jaw inside the first ten minutes of the third Test, and Rassie Erasmus confirmed afterwards that his series is over.
“Cheslin broke his jaw,” the Springboks coach said, before moving straight to the practical consequences. South Africa lead the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series 2-1 after their win at the FNB Stadium, and the finale takes place in Baltimore. Both squads board the same charter flight to the United States. Kolbe stays home.
He is not the only one. Carlu Sadie, Boan Venter and Ntuthuko Mchunu also remain in South Africa, as does Ben-Jason Dixon, who is still showing concussion symptoms. Five names removed from a touring party in a single afternoon is a heavy toll for a squad that has spent this entire series managing its minutes.
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Erasmus reshuffles the back three
The replacements are already mapped out. Herschel Jantjies flies over as extra scrum-half cover, with Grant Williams available to fill in on the wing. Canan Moodie is working his way back to fitness.
At full-back, Erasmus has depth rather than a hole. “Damian Willemse will be ready for next, so will Aphelele Fassi,” he said. Two experienced options for one shirt is not the problem the All Blacks are facing this week.
New Zealand lost captain Ardie Savea to a shoulder injury in the same match and he will not travel either. Quinn Tupaea is a doubt with an MCL problem in his knee.
Why Erasmus stopped rotating
The selection story behind the win deserves attention. Erasmus rotated heavily through the Nations Championship and through the early part of this series, then held his line for the third Test.
“What we have learnt from the Lions Series and World Cup knockout games is that in a series like this, game three is the most important,” he said. “We tried to manage the minutes in the Nations Championship, and we chopped and changed to find the solutions.”
He was not comfortable watching it. “At half-time, I worried that we got it wrong because the guys were breathing heavily, but we had a good bench.”
That bench settled it. Baltimore will test whether the same method holds up with five fewer bodies to pick from.
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