Star Springboks fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is in contention to face Argentina next month, according to head coach Rassie Erasmus
South Africa warm up for their Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks by taking on Los Pumas on August 8 in Buenos Aires
Feinberg-Mngomezulu last played on May 30 when he suffered an injury which Stormers head coach John Dobson suggested was “pretty serious”, but he has now recovered after undergoing surgery
“We’ve got Sacha coming back now, he will go with the guys to Argentina,” Erasmus told reporters after the Boks’ victory over Wales on Saturday
Springboks fly-half options
In Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s absence, they have used Manie Libbok, Handre Pollard and Vusi Moyo in the number 10 jersey in the Nations Championship
Libbok started against England in their opener before Pollard took the reins for the Scotland clash and youngster Moyo was handed an opportunity in their finale versus the Welsh
The 20-year-old was a surprise starter for their clash in Durban, but Erasmus revealed that they also lost the services of a two-time Rugby World Cup for the encounter at Kings Park Stadium
“Handre pulled his hamstring. Handre is fit now, he wasn’t fit for this game, so we didn’t have Sacha, we didn’t have Handre,” he said
“We had him [Moyo] and Manie. We didn’t want to start Manie because putting a guy on in the second half at that age against a quality team like Wales (might be counterproductive).”
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The Springboks have three experienced and quality options in the form of Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Pollard and Libbok, but injuries have shown Erasmus that they still need more depth
Moyo is one of two age-grade fly-halves they are excited about with the other, Yaqeen Ahmed, playing a key role in the Junior Springboks’ World Rugby U20 Championship title success on Saturday
Youngster’s Test debut
South Africa’s head coach decided to keep Moyo with the national team, instead of allowing him to go to Georgia for that tournament, and he handed the 20-year-old his Test bow against Wales
He kicked three conversions in his 47 minutes of action before making way for Libbok, who finished a game where they claimed a 43-0 triumph. “Hell, we have to have another fly-half. We have two guys out and we felt that he was the next guy in,” Erasmus said
“Obviously, the fly-half for the U20s, Yaqeen, he’s a wonderful player, we would love to have him in the mix, but we felt so bad keeping Vusi here and not playing (for the U20s), so it was next man up
“We didn’t want to move Damian [Willemse] to 10 or one of the other guys, we wanted to get an U20 fly-half into the mix and see how he does.”
InternationalsRassie ErasmusSacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu
