There have been various references made to the inexperience of the Springbok lock pairing for this Saturday’s test match in Durban against England since the announcement of the team.

The Springboks will be starting the test against England with a lock pairing that boasts a combined total of Springboks test caps of zero.

A recent posting by fellow rugby-talk blogger highlighted this fact and compared this to the amount of experience previous Springbok coaches had available to them at lock. Part of the author’s response was that in spite of this lack of test match experience at lock was sure that the Springboks pack was still more experienced than England’s.

Rather than just leave it there one thought it would be interesting to actually go and compare the number of test match caps each team’s forward pack have.

The number of caps was obtained from the official websites of each team and one assumes that they have been accurately reflected.

Caps refer to official test matches only. Various players have played more non-test match status games for the Springboks, the traditional ‘mid-week games’. These matches were not included in totals.

Similarly, various England have also played for England Saxons team, most notably in the Churchhill Cup. Likewise these matches are not included as caps.

The table below shows the amount of caps for both teams for Saturday’s starting packs and the forward substitutes.

Indeed, the Springbok starting pack boasts about twice as much experience, based on test caps, than England. Or if you want to be more accurate approximately 1.79775281 times as many caps!

The Springbok starting pack boasts one hundred and sixty caps while England’s one a mere eighty nine.

*official test match caps

Closer analysis of the numbers show an interesting similarity in that the bulk of the experience in both teams is concentrated in the fronts rows. Even here though, the Springboks have the upper hand.

The Springbok starting front row have 104 caps between them, or 65% percent of the total starting pack. England’s front row have jointly played in 67 tests, an even higher proportion of their starting total caps at 75%.

Eben Etzebeth has arguably been the best South African lock playing in this year’s Super 15 rugby tournament, with Juandre Kruger following hot on his heels. Kruger has certainly been lauded as the best number 5 lock available for the Springboks.

Therefore, in spite of neither player having played a test yet one has to applaud their selection as one that Mr Meyer has got spot on.

Another thing to note is that while Eben Etzebeth and Juandre Kruger may have never played a test together I could only find three test match squads that list Mouritz Botha and Geoff Parling as starting locks for England. These games were in this year’s Six Nations against Wales, France and Ireland.

As international lock combinations go then, both teams have a pairing who are quite limited in amount of playing together. Botha plays for Saracens and Parling for Leicester so even at club level they would not have added to time played together.

Another thing to mention is that while Stuart Lancaster, by selecting them for this test, considers this pair his best available locks there are arguably better England locks who didn’t make the tour.

Courtney Lawes, who is a very good ‘hardman’ lock, and possibly England’s best, was not selected for the tour due to a shin injury. Fellow international lock Louis Deaconwho is quite an experienced player is also missing from the team.

England almost manage to catch up on total match day twenty two caps, when one looks at the benches of both teams.

England’s bench contains four players who between them have 84 caps, almost the same number as their starting pack. The Springboks on the other hand have an inexperienced bench, as far as test rugby goes, with only 21 caps between them.

However, this shouldn’t be a problem as the overall quality on the bench on the Springboks looks to be better than that of England.

This is surely the case among the front row replacements where the Springboks will be able to call on Coenie Oosthuizen and Adriaan Strauss versus England’s Paul Doran Jones and Lee Mears.

Oosthuizen and Strauss have been the outstanding performers for the Cheetahs at Super rugby and Currie Cup level for some time and their inclusion in the team is just reward for their hard work. The leadership of Cheetahs captain Strauss may also prove invaluable in assisting to provide direction to the team late on if the game gets tight.

In addition to all of this, Oosthuizen and Strauss will also add more weight to the front row as replacement than their England opponents.

There may not be much to choose between the other forwards on each bench.

The Springboks have gone for a physical number four lock in Flip van der Merwe. England’s Tom Palmer generally plays number five and is perhaps the more athletic of the two.

However, there is not much between these two in terms of physical stats with van der Merwe a little heavier and shorter than Palmer.

At loose forward the Springboks have highly talented Keegan Daniels, who is a fast skilfull player, on the bench. Although Keegan Daniels is fairly light for the position, he punches well above his weight with his all round play, please excuse the cliché folks.

In addition Daniels, captain of the Sharks, also has leadership skills to offer off the bench.

Phil Dowson, England’s loose forward replacement, is arguably a far more physical player than Daniels so will offer something different off the bench for coach Lancaster.

Dowson is only a little taller than Daniels but way heavier and in terms of physical stats can possibly compared to Marcell Coetzee who will be making his Springbok debut this weekend.

 Forwards Replacements Physical Stats

*as figures vary depending on source these are latest stats from each country’s official rugby websites

This all goes to show that in spite of the Springboks having three players making their debuts on Saturday against England’s two that overall the Springboks still have more experience.

In the positions where the Springboks have less test match experience one feels their players are generally better than England’s anyway and provide more leadership options.

Hopefully all the ‘measurable’ information in this article is accurate as much time was taken to ensure this. Please feel free to add more knowledge you may have regarding the topic and point out any factual inaccuracies. We endeavour to rectify any incorrect factual errors if there any.