De Jager return pleases Proudfoot

Lood de Jager is set to start for the Springboks on Saturday after getting through his Currie return for the Vodacom Blue Bulls last weekend.

De Jager played 55 minutes for the Bulls and impressed Bok forward coach Matt Proudfoot with his play so much that the coach gushed about him at the Monday press conference, underlining the likelihood that De Jager will start for the Boks against Australia in the Rugby Championship opener on Saturday.

"I was delighted to see him get 55 minutes, and he did really well," Proudfoot said.

"What you could see when he was out of the team they lost a bit of structure. We tried to implement leadership and structure within the team and the players, that they can understand and can effect the plan on the field. That was what was pleasing for me, that Lood could understand the plan, he didn't have a lot of preparation time with the Bulls, but he could understand their plan and implement it really well. And now we can hopefully get him firing in our system."

Proudfoot said while De Jager, Eben Etzebeth, Beast Mtawarira and Pieter-Steph du Toit were all returning to the field and were likely to play a part this week, the lack of game time had not been a problem for the Boks, who have been together now for three weeks.

"We planned for that very well. Last week's preparation was built around that process and that was always in the back of our minds. You can understand the way Rassie (Erasmus) plans, that is something he does pay attention to – how much workload the players have, and it can be too much or too little. We really plan around that and we put things in place to the way we trained last week to assimilate that.

"But other than the Crusaders and the Jaguares, nobody has played for the last few weeks, so I think everybody is in the same boat. We are really pleased with our preparation, so now it is going to be 80 minutes of rugby coming up and that is what we are looking forward to."

And Proudfoot was happy that Kwagga Smith was doing well in the squad training while Rynhard Elstadt certainly made a difference in training sessions and had earned his place in the squad through his performances in France.

"Kwagga was with us for part of the June series last year, so it was just a refresher for him. Rynhard did incredibly well for Toulouse, I thought his game in the final was superb. I've known Rynhardt as long as I’ve known Siya (Kolisi), so it is a bit of an old face. We know what he is capable of doing, he is a very versatile player, a player with a high work rate.

"I think it is a good addition to the side, he is a guy who understands how we play rugby and is a guy in form. So I think Rassie has been very prudent in his selection and bringing in players from outside that can really add a dimension to this team."

The Boks are likely to name their squad on Wednesday.