Jasper Wiese

Jasper Wiese is the ball-carrier South Africa turn to when the plan is to go straight through the middle and see who blinks.

There is no subtlety to the primary function and none is required. He takes the ball flat, targets the inside shoulder, and consistently makes ground where the defence is most organised — the least glamorous metres in rugby and the ones that let a team play.

The rest of the game has grown around it. He is a better cleaner-out than he was, more disciplined at the breakdown, and his defensive workrate no longer drops in the third quarter the way it once did.

Discipline has been the recurring cost. A game played that close to the line produces cards, and he has lost South Africa players at moments they could not afford.

He plays his club rugby in England, alongside a brother who has taken a different route into the same conversation. For the Springboks he remains the blunt instrument the game plan is built to need.