Frans Malherbe gave up his starting jersey to let Vincent Koch celebrate 50 caps

“Coach, Vincent is celebrating 50 caps, it’s right that he plays as a starter”: Frans Malherbe said this to Rassie Erasmus after the technical meeting during which South Africa’s lineup for the match against Wales was announced. Initially, Malherbe was expected to be the starter while Koch would be used as an impact player, a role he has almost always covered in the Springboks shirt.

As told by Rassie Erasmus himself, however, it was Malherbe himself who wanted to take a step back to allow his teammate to celebrate 50 caps starting from the beginning and not from the bench: “We announced Frans as the starter, and 5 minutes later some players came to tell me that it would be Vincent’s 50th game. At that point Frans heard everything and said ‘No, Vincent has to start’.”

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At that point, there was no problem for Erasmus, also because for the coach the two are on a similar level. The initial choice was made only by virtue of the fact that Koch is used to coming on during the match and in doing so the entire first reserve line would have been of the Sharks brand with Mbonambi and Mchunu.

“There is nothing that separates Malherbe and Koch. There will simply be a different combination than initially expected. Vincent is a hard-working boy and has had little chance to start, but we don’t want a player coming off the bench in his 50th cap, especially when in the end there is nothing between him and Frans,” explained Erasmus.

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It is not the first time this has happened in the Springboks, it had already happened in 2021. The one who took a step back on that occasion was Lood de Jager towards Franco Mostert, as Erasmus says: “We had already made this mistake once. In 2021 we chose Lood de Jager against Scotland, and on the Thursday before the game they said to me ‘Do you know it’s Franco Mostert’s 50th?’. It seemed like a good thing to me and I was sorry that he was starting from the bench, I spoke to Lood and told him ‘I made a mistake, I think Franco should start because it’s his 50th game’, he said it wasn’t a problem and in fact when we had the meeting he wanted to tell his comrades himself. At the meeting he stood up and said: ‘Listen, it’s Franco’s fiftieth match. Franco starts and I’ll start from the bench’”

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