Legendary Springbok Victor Matfield has insisted that Rassie Erasmus won’t be afraid to throw in their age-grade stars in the tougher Nations Championship matches.

South Africa’s head coach surprised many by picking his strongest available side for their opening November clash against Italy.

On paper, the injury-hit Azzurri this Saturday in Turin will be the easiest of the Boks’ three Nations Championship group fixtures, with observers therefore expecting to see some young and fringe players involved.

Four players 20 or under

Erasmus’ explanation for holding the uncapped six back, which includes youngsters Yaqeen Ahmed, Markus Muller, Riley Norton and Luan Giliomee, was their lack of time in camp.

Matfield duly believes that they could be involved later down the line with the Boks boss never shy of throwing a selection curveball.

“What Rassie is saying this week is the players only arrived in camp on Monday and they’re playing Saturday, so there are quite a few of them that haven’t been in the Springboks camp at all,” he told the Rivals podcast.

“They don’t understand what they want to do, how they want to achieve it, so for him, he would rather let them get into the system, get into the squad, understand what it’s about.

“That’s something Rassie will do. If you play France or Ireland and everyone thinks, ‘listen, this is just going to be conservative’, he doesn’t mind giving those players an opportunity.

“If they want to go to a World Cup next year, they need to be able to perform in those big games as well. It probably doesn’t help if they perform well against an Italian team with a lot of injuries because a lot of people will say: ‘Yeah, but the quality wasn’t there’.

“If these kids get an opportunity against a France or Ireland or maybe in the final week, they’ll have to step up and they will have to show, ‘listen I’m ready to go to a World Cup and play in a big game’.”

Italy to struggle

Matfield was joined on the podcast by All Blacks legend and former Italy head coach Sir John Kirwan, who was asked if the Azzurri stand a chance. “No” was Kirwan’s blunt response with the hosts without a staggering 17 players for the Nations Championship due to injury.

He added: “They will have a crack. The interesting thing about the Italians is they played really, really well two Novembers ago against the All Blacks, and they play well when they disrupt you.

“They get in your face and they can be really aggressive. The interesting thing about Italy is you don’t have the depth of squad that New Zealand or South Africa have. New Zealand have got a massive injury list as well. I don’t think they’ll win but they’ll certainly have a crack.

“I was also interested to see Rassie’s side. I thought he would take a different approach but you’ve got to get your trip off to the best start so good on him.”