Springboks provide clarity on Siya Kolisi's withdrawal ahead of Barbarians clash

On Friday, it was announced that Jesse Kriel was replacing Kolisi as captain against the invitational team, while Marco van Staden would be joining the matchday squad.

At the time of the announcement, Kolisi's injury was described as a "niggle", but assistant coach Mzwandile Stick has provided further clarity, revealing that the flanker may have been fit in time to play on Saturday but the coaching staff decided not to risk him.

The Springbok assistant confirmed that Kolisi is struggling with a stiff neck but added that he doesn't believe it to be anything serious.

"As a team, we try and give players the best opportunity to be 100% on Saturday," Stick told reporters.

"For Siya, it's just a stiff neck, I don't think there's a need for us to take a risk.

"The chances are by the time we go out for the kick-off of the game that Siya will probably be loose and 100%. But it's situations like this that we always plan to build more leaders in our team.

"Now we have Jesse as our captain so congratulations to him, he has always been a leader so it was an easy call for us to make.

"We didn't want to push Siya, I don't think it's a major thing, it's just a stiff neck and we don't want to take a risk.

"But I am excited to see Jesse's leadership skills. He has always been vocal and led by example so for him to get an opportunity to lead the team I think it's something that is great for us."

Meanwhile, Stick says that the appointment took Kriel by surprise but added that the midfielder has always been a leader in the squad.

He further explained why the coaches decided to remove Kolisi from the team after weighing up whether to give him another day or two to prove his fitness.

"I know one thing for sure, he [Kriel] didn't see it coming," he added.

"That's one thing I really enjoy about how we operate in our system is the player first trains and works hard to be in the team before they become captains.

"I enjoy that about Jesse, even if he's not in the best 23, he always puts in the work and makes sure that he helps the team.

"We probably could have given Siya the opportunity to recover but that's not how we operate, we want to make sure that we coach the players so if Siya misses the Wednesday training session, and he didn't tick the box when it comes to how we to defend on Saturday. Meanwhile, Jesse has been there since we started our camps and he was going through one of the toughest fitness tests."

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