SOUTH AFRICA FORWARDS coach Deon Davids says the Springboks were always planning on including RG Snyman in their squad for the Rugby Championship, despite releasing the lock back to Munster last week.
Snyman hasn’t played any rugby since August of last year, suffering an ACL injury just seven minutes into his Munster debut.
His injury struggles continued with a knee issue in May followed by burn injuries sustained in a fire pit accident the following month.
Despite his lengthy lay-off Snyman joined the South Africa squad ahead of the Lions tour, but didn’t feature in the series and was released back to Munster to “continue his rehab” ahead of the third Test last Saturday.
However the Springboks have since recalled the lock to their squad for their Rugby Championship campaign, which kicks-off against Argentina this weekend.
Speaking during a South Africa press conference this morning, Davids said it was always the plan to bring Snyman back in for the Rugby Championship.
However the assistant coach did not confirm when they expect the player to be fit to play again, with their Rugby Championship schedule running up to 2 October.
“RG Snyman was always a big part of our plans going forward,” Davids said.
“Medically, I think he’s still busy working with his rehabilitation. He’ll definitely be considered as soon as there is a lot of improvement, (and) then he will form part of this squad going forward for this next couple of Test matches.”
The Springboks head into the Rugby Championship on a high after beating the Lions last Saturday to take the Test series 2-1, and Davids outlined that they plan to dip a little deeper into their squad across the coming weeks on the back of a “very competitive” series as they look to defend the title they won in 2019. A condensed version of the competition was held last year, which saw only New Zealand, Australia and Argentina take part.
“I think the players understand the importance of going into this competition now we are the defending champions,” Davids said. “We would like to defend the title successfully.
“Obviously I’m very very proud of the performance of the players (against the Lions), it was a very tough series, very competitive up front.
“We feel that the group grew from Test one against Georgia to going into the series. There was a consistent process of us trying to improve ourselves but having so much experience in the side helped a lot, and also the willingness of the players to share that experience with the youngsters and the new guys coming in was really encouraging.”
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