Erasmus explains Louw omission for England Test, confirms Norton injury

Louw was a starter for the Bulls in their recent United Championship final loss to Leinster in Dublin, the day before Test tighthead rival Thomas du Toit was part of the Bath team beaten in the English Premiership final at Twickenham by Bath.

With the Springboks preparing for their Nations Championship opener, Erasmus has named his team five days in advance of the Ellis Park match. In the front row, he has opted to start with Du Toit at No.3, include Stormers rookie Zach Porthen as the bench option and exclude Louw despite his past experience of playing in the Premiership as a former Harlequins player.

Appearing at Monday's team selection media briefing, Erasmus said: "Probably the question on Zach and Wilco, what we see in training is Zach is definitely scrumming against guys like Ox and Gerhard Steenekamp and is doing a really great job, and we feel he can do a good job for us, especially at altitude, and if you look at the team of England, it's a youthful team and a mobile team and we feel we might need that in the game."

Erasmus added that Louw hasn't had the best of times health-wise recently, while there was also a family death to cope with during his busy end to the club season with the Bulls. "Wilco has had a tough time. Not to get into his personal life, but there was some illness in the family. There was a family bereavement; he was ill for one game and had a tough last five, six weeks.

"And also, again, we worked with Zach a week longer. Thomas starting for us is quite solid at tighthead and Zach coming off the bench, he is a really mobile prop and he has really impressed at scrum sessions. We feel that Wilco needs just one week to settle in a little bit. We think his body took some hammering in the last couple of weeks, so that's the reason."

Revealing the extent of the injury that has denied the 20-year-old lock Norton a Springboks Test debut against England following his impressive run versus the Barbarians nine days ago, Erasmus explained that it will be September at the earliest before the rookie will be available again after a training ground setback.

The Springbok plan was to play Norton this weekend and then release him to play for the Junior Boks at the Junior World Championship in Georgia, but that idea has now been scrapped.

"Riley pulled his hamstring, a grade three, so that is bad for him⦠eight to 10 weeks (out)," he said. "The locks are certainly getting injured in our environment. Unfortunately, the second-last move of the training session, he just pulled his hamstring while chasing. It wasn't a weird incident. He just pulled it.

"Jaco Williams also had a hamstring (injury), but he is fully fit now. I think the junior guys coming in, maybe the intensity at the beginning of the training sessions, because they really pushed the older guys really hard. I wouldn't say it was our fault, but for the younger guys keeping up with that all the time, it's about getting used to keeping up with that intensity all the time."

That Saturday will see double World Cup winners Cheslin Kolbe and Damian Willemse win their 50th cap. They are part of a starting line-up that features Manie Libbok at out-half and also has Pieter-Steph du Toit named as the starting openside but on call to provide back-up at lock if needed, as Erasmus only chose a five/three bench split without a specialist second row replacement.

"Not having a lock specialist on the bench, we have got Marco (van Staden) and Cameron (Hanekom), which is why Pieter-Steph (du Toit) will cover lock for us," said Erasmus. "And then a five/three split as Andre (Esterhuizen) can cover loose forward for us. The other fly-half will be Damian Willemse, who plays full-back."

Explaining his decision to start Libbok and overlook the veteran Handre Pollard with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu unavailable through injury, Erasmus said: "Sacha was injured. Manie had a full season in Japan and is always very fit, and we had one more week to prepare with him than we had with Handre because the Bulls were playing in the final. We all know the way Manie plays, so hopefully when it's on, he does (take advantage and play expansively), but obviously we would like to play a game that we control.

"I am very sure England is going to make it very tough for us there, but it's a selection we think fits for this game, and if the game opens up, which I think England will try and do, Manie is the right guy for that."

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