The fifteen best young players in Super Rugby

The Backrow

8. Arno Botha (Bulls)

Can play on the blindside flank or at no. 8 and has been a revelation to me this year.

He captained the Baby Boks JWC team at the 2011 JWC and was in the Bulls squad in 2012. He did not get to start in a game, yet was invited to train with the Springboks last winter and was called into the their touring squad on the EOYT, though didn’t play in a test match.

He is a typical South African backrower: abrasive, yet skilful – and can run like the wind.

 7. Siya Kolisi (Stormers)

To use the numbering used in Australia and NZ – is playing on the openside flank but is not a fetcher in the manner of Brussouw of the Cheetahs. Like Botha, he is another skilled yet hard-edged South African loose forward, and an uncompromising tackler with a huge work rate and a joy of contact. He is also a commanding ball runner through traffic or in open play.

Kolisi played in the 2010 and 2011 JWCs and was expected to have to bide his time in Super Rugby in 2012. But the injury to Schalk Burger changed all that and Kolisi started for the first game of the season and never looked back. Many considered him unlucky not to get a test cap against England last winter and his luck got no better when a broken thumb in the Currie Cup dashed his hopes of a Springbok EOYT.

Unless injury intervenes I feel that Kolisi is certain to play for the Springboks this year.

 6. Ed Quirk (Reds)

Made his Reds’ debut from the bench as an 18 year-old in the last game of Queensland’s grand comeback year in 2010.

The youngster started in only two Reds’ games (on the open side) in the next two seasons because of injury and the presence of talented experienced players like Daniel Braid, Scott Higginbotham and Radike Samo in the backrow mix. But now that a beefier Quirk has had a good recovery from his third shoulder reconstruction – and Scott Higginbotham has moved to Melbourne – he has started in every game for the Reds this year on the blindside flank.

I first saw Quirk’s aggressive style in 2008 when he was 16 years old and represented Queensland Schools in the ASRUC in Canberra. He got a red card for dangerous play and his first action in the next game was to deliver a coat-hanger tackle, which fortunately for him was not noticed by the officials. Later that year he won the Bronze Boot Award for being Australian Schools’ best player against NZ Schools.

Quirk represented Australia in Sevens in 2010 and in the JWCs of 2010 and 2011. He has started on both flanks for the Reds and has the skill set to play no.8.

He is confrontational in tight work and a powerhouse at the breakdown, as he showed against the Waratahs earlier in the season. During that game he also demonstrated his ability in open play when he blitzed the Tahs before popping up a pass from the ground for a Reds’ try.

He would have come to the attention of Wallabies’ selectors by now but there is still a streak of recklessness about his play that they will like to see muted.

The Second Row

5. Luke Jones (Rebels)

Was the first Aussie forward to get a full Super contract whilst still at school. He had shown his potential playing for Australian Schools in 2008 and 2009 and although he didn’t expect to get a game in his first professional year in 2010, he made his debut when he came off the Western Force bench late in a Super 14 game in Wellington to lock the scrum with Nathan Sharpe. How good was that for a young bloke?

He played for Australia at the 2010 and 2011 JWCs but didn’t get a lot of Super game time until 2012 after he transferred to Melbourne.

At the Rebels, Jones is happy to be in the starting XV but ask him what his preferred position is and he will say: the blindside flank. Indeed, with his aggression and work ethic he resembles Marcell Coetzee of the Sharks.

Jones owns one of the biggest engines in Super Rugby and has a high skill level for a big man. He is good friends with a team mate from his St. Pius College 1st XV, Michael Hooper of the Waratahs. If his performance curve prevails I think that Jones will be joining his old school mate in a Wallabies’ squad sometime soon.

4. Lodewyk de Jager (Cheetahs)

The smokey of the team. The 20 year old was was not too well-known, even in South Africa, at the start of the year but they’ll know him at the end of March. At 202 cms and 122 kgs, he has an imposing physique, and he uses it; yet he can get around the park.

He doesn’t have a great rugby pedigree: he was in the Leopards Currie Cup squad in 2012 but never got a start. He was chosen by the Cheetahs for Super Rugby this year because of his play in the 2012 Under-21 Currie Cup.

He missed out in the last cut for the 2012 JWC – but you should see him now.

The Front Row

3. Scott Sio (Brumbies)

Played for Australia in the 2010 and 2011 JWCs and is chosen as tight-head prop [THP] because that is the position where he held his own for the Brumbies against Wales in a mid-week game last year. He is chosen ahead of another 21 year-old THP candidate, Ben Tameifuna, who is over-weight and spent too much time sucking in seagulls last weekend when he started against the Highlanders.

As a 20 year-old in 2012 Sio was in the Brumbies’ EPS and had to bide his time before he got a few games from the bench. Though fully contracted in 2013 he was still behind Wallabies Ben Alexander and Dan Palmer.  Before the Brumbies headed to South Africa for their two match tour recently he had played only five games from the bench in two years.

In South Africa he started as loosehead-prop [LHP] and scrummaged well against current Springbok THP, Jannie du Plessis of the Sharks. He was also good against the Stormers but for one scrum when the Brumbies missed the hit and got smashed. Talk about a baptism of fire for the young man.

Scott has good rugby pedigree. Father David played for Western Samoa and was on duty at the 1991 Rugby World Cup when he found out that his son had been born. Instead of naming him “Sydney”, the place where the baby was born, he named him “Scott”, because dad was in Scotland when he got the happy news.

As well as being a promising scrummaging prop on either side of the scrum (and according to Laurie Fisher can play hooker as well) Scott is a powerful tackler and ball runner. He is young for an Aussie prop but as he accumulates more rotation game time with the Brumbies I don’t think it will take too many years before he interests the Wallabies’ selectors.

2. Rhys Marshall (Chiefs)

One of the few candidates for the hooking spot, but a good one.

The 20 year-old was a surprise selection by the Chiefs in their 2013 squad because he was under-weight and yet to play provincial rugby. But a stint with the 2012 NZ JWC squad, a lot of gym work, and months with the Chiefs’ training group built him up in both a physical and rugby sense.

As a long term project of the Chiefs he was behind internationals Mahonri Schwalger and Hika Elliot in the pecking order, but has already started in a Super Rugby game. With Schwalger already injured, he found out on the morning of the opening game of the Chiefs’ season, against the Highlanders, that Elliott had failed a fitness test and that he had to run-on. But he kept his nerves under control and played a mature game.

Marshall’s play is similar to that of new All Black hooker, Dan Coles: quick, tough and uncompromising.

1. Steve Kitshoff (Stormers)

Was playing in the Super 14 from the bench in 2011, his first year out of school, and he became a regular starter in 2012.

People started talking about him as being as good as Os du Rant was at the same age. Whilst that may have been over the top it was clear that if such a young man could hold his own against gnarled veterans in the front row of Super Rugby scrums, he was something special.

In 2012 Kitshoff was a member of the victorious Baby Boks team that won the JWC.

In Super Rugby he is a known workhorse but is currently under scrutiny from referees when scrums collapse. His future will be defined on how well he scrummages as a LHP but there is no question about his work ethic and readiness to shift bodies out of the way.