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The Springboks have reacted to Wasps making prop Koch redundant
By Liam Heagney
Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber have shared their thoughts on Springboks tighthead Vincent Koch being made redundant by Wasps and getting left without a club heading into his country’s four-Test European tour. That 32-year-old was one of the highest-profile movers in the Gallager Premiership off-season, switching from Saracens to Wasps following the league’s squeeze on the salary cap.
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It meant that Koch called time on his stellar six-season stint at Saracens in preference of a switch to the Coventry-based Wasps. However, within weeks of finally arriving to work at his new club, Koch was among the 167 players and staff who were made redundant on Monday when the financially stricken business ceased trading.
It was September 24 when the Springboks confirmed their second-place finish in the 2022 Rugby Championship by defeating Argentina in Durban, a match where Koch provided bench cover for the starting Frans Malherbe and was introduced as a 58th-minute replacement.
Koch then flew to England and began work at the Wasps training ground at Henley-in-Arden on October 4. Lee Blackett said at the time that the forward would be available to debut in that Sunday’s Premiership game at home to Northampton but illness scuppered that plan and the club has since folded without Koch managing to make an appearance.
This lack of club game time, though, won’t affect Koch’s credentials in the eyes of his Springboks bosses who feel he will still be sufficiently conditioned when the squad meets up in Dublin at the end of October ahead of their November 5 tour opener against Ireland.
“Luckily Vincent is the only player on the radar,” said Erasmus in reaction to the sudden contraction of the Premiership from 13 to eleven clubs with the demise of Wasps and Worcester. “At Worcester, we don’t really have a player. We are monitoring about 60, 65 players that we have roadmaps on and Vincent has played recently (for the Springboks) so we have got a road map on him.”
Nienaber added: “On Vincent, I can say since he started playing for us (in July) he has had just over 200 minutes, so we have got a pretty good roadmap on him. He will probably be like our Japanese players in this break between The Rugby Championship and us going on the end-of-year tour.
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“He won’t have participated in (club) rugby but if my memory serves me correct because of the injuries that there were to the props at Saracens, Vincent last year he was coming in just under 2,000 minutes for the year.
“So in terms of his body, this little break that he has now – and it won’t be a break as he will be in consultation with the S&C and the performance staff, they will be on his case – from a performance contact point of a view, if you have just come out of a season playing 2,000 minutes as a tighthead prop, he was exposed to a lot of rugby.
“Like I said, coming into our environment he is pretty much on track with the other props that we have and we have a good profile on him currently.”
