Seeking Consistency

A Rare Break From Rugby In The Off-season May Allow Elton Jantjies To Realise His Potential In The Lead-up To The 2019 World Cup, Writes Jon Cardinelli Of Sa Rugby Magazine

Elton Jantjies is an enigma. One can never be sure whether the genius or the impostor will wear the No 10 jersey on any given Saturday.

One can never be certain that a white-hot attacking display against a top-ranked side won’t be succeeded by a mistakeridden performance the very next week.

While he remains one of the best fly-halves in the country and one of the most dangerous attacking players in the world, Jantjies is yet to make the Springbok No 10 jersey his own.

His strengths and weaknesses have been debated at length in the media, with some coming to the conclusion that the problem is as much mental as it is physical.

Last year, Rassie Erasmus waded into the debate and offered up a theory of his own. The Boks coach said Jantjies’ long struggle for consistency may be linked to fatigue.

The fly-half was on the park for all 1,520 minutes of the Lions’ 2018 Super Rugby campaign. A closer analysis revealed he had been playing non-stop – for the Lions in Super Rugby, the Boks over the course of the test season and for the NTT Shining Arcs in the Japanese Top League – for the better part of five years.

“I have no doubt about his talent and we must find a way for him to perform to the highest level,” said Erasmus. “That’s our job as coaches: to help him do that.”

The decision was taken to manage the player carefully throughout the 2018 test season. After representing the Barbarians in early-December, Jantjies linked up with the Lions for their pre-season training programme instead of heading to Japan.

He certainly made an impression in his final appearance of 2018, though.

The Barbarians started to gather momentum after Jantjies was introduced late in the second stanza and Handré Pollard was moved to fullback. Jantjies had a hand in two tries and then held his nerve to slot the game-winning drop goal in the 79th minute.