Springbok hooker pairing the strongest in world rugby

The Springboks have the privilege of boasting the best pair of hookers in world rugby, and a game-plan perfectly suited to rotating the two throughout 80 minutes. It is not often that a team is blessed with such equal quality between the starter and the substitute in such a specialised position, writes Oliver Keohane.

This article aims to rejig the memory of Malcolm Marx and the menace of Bongi Mbonambi. Marx, who has been playing for the Kubota Spears in Japan for the last year, racked up the South African Player of the Year award, South African Young Player of the Year award and South African Super Rugby player of the year award in his debut Springbok year in 2017. Following his hulk-like performance against the All Blacks that year, Marx put down a claim to being among the best hookers in the world.

WATCH: Malcolm Marx monsters the All Blacks

But the 6ft2, 114kg Marx was not the starting Springbok hooker for the 2019 World Cup. Instead, one of the world’s best was on the bench behind the Stormers’ Bongi Mbonambi. Mbonambi, since debuting for the Springboks in 2016 in a three-test series against Ireland, went on an exponential climb in quality to become an absolute bully by 2019. He also managed this after a life threatening appendix problem that saw him lose ten kilograms. On returning, he was a mongrel in the way he scrummed and drove his legs through the tackle, and the momentum he gave the Springboks and Stormers off first-phase ball was unmatched.

WATCH: Mbonambi’s comeback

While Mbonambi slowly surpassed Marx as the favoured starting hooker of the year in 2019, it is not at all to say that either is better or worse than one another. Instead both of them fit brilliantly into a Springbok dynamic that relies on a squad of 23. Both Mbonambi and Marx have the pre-requisite physicality required of a Springbok hooker, but what they offer is different value in different areas of the game. Marx is more of an extra loose forward, with brilliant hands, a turn of pace and lot of power in contact. Mbonambi’s hooking basics are his strength, as well his toil in the tighter areas of the game. A perfect compliment to see out 80 minutes.

However this is not to say one has to always start and one has to always come on. When the Springboks lost Mbonambi in the 21st minute of the World Cup final, Marx came on to produce a monster performance as part of a Springbok collective that clobbered England 32-12 to take home the Web Ellis Cup.

Bismarck Du Plessis was the best hooker in the world for a long time, but spent his Springbok years stuck behind John Smit who continued to start only through is captaincy. The Springboks of 2021 will also find themselves with one of the world’s best hookers on their bench every time they play a test, but not because politics has prevented him from starting, but because the other best hooker in the world is in the run on XV. Whether that will be Marx or Mbonambi will probably never be clear, because with either of them as your hooker, you can lay claim to having the best in the game, both on the field and on the bench.

Many will argue the individual qualities of hookers around the world, but not many can argue that a country contains a pair of hookers as equally menacing as Mbonambi and Marx.

WATCH: Marx tribute