Former Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie believes Jesse Kriel has become one of Rassie Erasmus’ most trusted lieutenants.
Kriel has enjoyed arguably the finest form of his Test career over the past two seasons, establishing himself as the first-choice No 13 and captaining the Springboks for the first time last year.
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McKenzie believes the 32-year-old has become one of the key pillars around which Erasmus builds his matchday squads.
“Rassie picks his teams, and there’s always a core of players he goes to,” McKenzie said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“He plays a lot of guys in the forwards, but he picks Pieter-Steph du Toit because he is a magical player and plays Jesse Kriel at 13.”
The former Wallabies coach reserved special praise for Kriel’s influence without the ball, comparing him to one of New Zealand’s greatest-ever centres.
“He’s clearly a good communicator. He’s aggressive and on his game. He’s probably like a Conrad Smith in terms of he sort of organises the defence.”
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McKenzie’s comments came as he reflected on South Africa’s victory over Scotland, a match in which the visitors enjoyed long periods of possession and territory but were unable to capitalise.
“South Africa picked a different team, and Scotland had the right type of game to trouble them a little bit, and they did,” he said.
“But when you look through the stats, it was all Scotland – like amazing stats, you’d think they’d win the game easily.”
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Photo: Floris van Schouwenburg/Gallo Images
The post McKenzie: Jesse is Boks’ Conrad Smith appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Former Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie believes Jesse Kriel has become one of Rassie Erasmus’ most trusted lieutenants.
The post McKenzie: Jesse is Boks’ Conrad Smith appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
