Jordan Buhrs has taken Rassie Erasmus's 76-player Springbok alignment squad and tried to do what most South African rugby fans have been asking for since the squad was named: turn the abstract size of the net into a specific position-by-position depth chart heading into the July Tests.
"The 2026 Springbok squad is not normal," Buhrs said at the top of the video. "Rassie Erasmus is building something that we have never ever seen before."
The loosehead prop room is exhibit A. Buhrs counted seven loosehead options in the alignment camp — Thomas du Toit, Ox Nche, Steven Kitshoff (in his alignment-camp role), Frans Malherbe, Vincent Koch, Trevor Nyakane, Wilco Louw and Boan Venter — with no injuries at all in the group. That is an outlier across the rest of the squad, where the medical room is doing serious business.
"Ox Nche is probably the front-runner in this category," Buhrs said, naming Khaditi Steenkamp as the in-form challenger off the back of his Bulls season. "Boan Venter seemed to get better and better every game last year. If you don't follow URC rugby that closely, you wouldn't have watched too much of Boan Venter — but he's in the squad for a reason."
The hooker position is where the long-running Bongi Mbonambi question gets a clearer answer. Buhrs reads the alignment-camp roster as Bongi being phased out — he has not been to the camps — and Malcolm Marx as the unambiguous starter. "Right now, with Bongi out of the picture, Malcolm Marx is that number one in the hooker position, and then it drops off slightly," Buhrs said. "The gap between second and first isn't as close as it once was."
Mongeli Mbonambi (no relation) has picked up a medium-term injury at the under-20 Springboks. Behind Marx, Buhrs ranks Johan Grobler, Marnus van der Merwe and the utility front-rower Jan Hendrik Venter as the likely contenders for the rest of the rotation.
Tighthead, by contrast, is wide open. Buhrs argued that with Frans Malherbe still battling chronic back and neck issues and unlikely to return as a playing option, the contest is genuinely between Wilco Louw and Thomas du Toit for the starting role. "The tighthead position for me is a little bit more open than potentially any other position in the Springbok side," he said. Scarra Ntubeni, Neethling Fouche and France-based Carlu Sadie are listed as the developing options.
The most pressing problem, however, is at lock. Buhrs identifies a near-perfect storm: Ruan Nortjé and RG Snyman are out for the remainder of the season; Eben Etzebeth is on the comeback trail and likely back by the Nations Championship; Salmaan Moerat has only just returned to Stormers training. That leaves Jean Kleyn — himself a question mark after sitting out the closing rounds of the URC — and a fistful of less-experienced options for the early July fixtures.
"If you're picking from the guys who aren't injured at the moment, Jean Kleyn probably starts in that number-four jersey," Buhrs said. "I would not be surprised to see Ruan Nortjé Jr — the under-20 captain — get a couple of caps in those first three games in the Nations Championship, especially if Eben and Salmaan Moerat are out of those test matches."
Kwagga Wiese is described as a flank-lock hybrid who would be parachuted into the second row only in a genuine crisis. The lock conversation matters because the Springboks open their international season on June 20 against the Barbarians, and the eligibility window is awkward — Kleyn would need Munster's permission to play that game, which Buhrs expects to be granted but is not yet confirmed.
The wider message of Buhrs's breakdown is that the 76-player net is doing what Erasmus designed it to do. It hides genuine selection battles inside a list big enough to absorb the season's injury picture, and it gives the head coach the information to choose between continuity and experimentation when the playing squad is finally trimmed for the Nations Championship opener.
