A lack of game time is the reason why World Cup-winning prop Steven Kitshoff missed out on selection for South Africa’s two-match Rugby Championship tour of Australia.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus says Kitshoff would have been part of SA’s touring squad of 33 players if he had minutes at his union Western Province.
Kitshoff, who returned to the Cape after one season playing in Ireland for Ulster, has been training with Province’s Currie Cup group.
But WP and Stormers director of rugby, John Dobson, has gone with blooding youthful players while wrapping marquee stars like Kitshoff in cotton wool ahead of their September 21 kick-off to the United Rugby Championship season.
Of why Jan-Hendrik Wessels was picked to tour Down Under and not Kitshoff, Erasmus explains: “Kitsie needs to play some rugby now, he is ready to play, but he needs to get some game time now…
“We don’t want to take an unfit Kitsie and a Malcolm [Marx] who’s [injury is still] dodgy and that is why Jan-Hendrik Wessels can cover prop and hooker and certainly makes more sense.”