By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus has called-up Makazole Mapimpi into the squad for Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash against the Australia in Cape Town.
Mapimpi could come straight into the starting XV, given both Kurt-Lee Arendse and Edwill van der Merwe are both out of action through injury.
The experienced Sharks winger has 47 Boks caps to his name at the time of writing, after making his Test debut in 2018.
Mapimpi featured for the Springboks in their homecoming series against Italy last month, but did not make the initial 35-man squad for the two-Test series against the Wallabies.
“On selection, there are already four players injured who won’t play this weekend: Siya, Kurt-Lee, Edwill and Pieter-Steph are out, so that’s four changes straight away,” said Erasmus earlier on Monday.
“If you build squad depth, anyone can say they are building squad depth, but if you lose, then you’re not really building depth, because that depth must be able to perform. And we didn’t do that this weekend. That doesn’t mean it was the players’ fault – it could be coaching mistakes, it could be mindset.”
“So yes, there will be changes this week. There were always going to be, even if we had won, but because we lost our momentum, there are some guys who would have played this weekend who now won’t.”