Springboks gamble on second string sealing Rugby Championship in Pumas country

Tip of the hat to Rassie Erasmus.

The coach has stuck by his plan to give all of his South Africa squad playing time and expose new players to quality opponents, and he's walking the walk.

The unbeaten Springboks could win the Rugby Championship in Argentina's backyard this Saturday with a game to spare.

Erasmus made 10 changes between the Australia tests last month and came up trumps, and made another 10 this week when there was no logical reason to with the championship on the line.

Even with a two-week break between games, he rested seven players who appeared in the Rugby World Cup final last year, including captain Siya Kolisi; left at home breakout flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu; and has placed in the reserves Eben Etzebeth, who is one cap shy of tying Victor Matfield's record for Springbok tests.

Already blessed with a great number of World Cup winners, Erasmus says he keeps rotating the Springboks to develop at least two, ideally three excellent players in every position in a bid to win an unprecedented third successive World Cup. But between now and then are three years and more than 30 tests to toy with.

The depth Erasmus has already grown was abundantly showed off this month against their greatest foe, New Zealand. In both games, the Springboks trailed at halftime but hung tough to clinch wins in the 74th minute in Johannesburg and 73rd in Cape Town.

What Erasmus has gambled on against the unpredictable Pumas in Santiago del Estero remains a formidable lineup but starts with almost 100 caps less than Argentina. They are tasked with clinching South Africa's first Rugby Championship since 2019, and first full championship since 2009.

South Africa has been so long without the title that half of Saturday's lineup have never won the trophy. Of those dozen players, six are World Cup champions, including prop Ox Nche.

“(The championship title) would give more credit to what the squad has built up over the last few years,” Nche says.

“A lot of teams have a tendency to be inconsistent at times, but after winning the Rugby World Cup we feel we are getting better and tighter as a unit, and winning the competition would amplify what we want to achieve as a team.”

Match conditions will be brutal. Humidity is expected to make the 33-degree temperature at the 6 p.m. local time kickoff feel even hotter.

The Pumas are also highly motivated for their last home game of the year. They have an outside chance at a championship title they have never won and will have to beat South Africa twice.

The record 67-27 demolition of Australia two weeks ago says they can do it but their inconsistency makes it doubtful. The Pumas have split tests this year with France, New Zealand and Australia. They switch too easily from extraordinary to ordinary.

The state of an injury-affected bench, particularly in the front row, also raises doubts about whether the Pumas can stay in the fight for all 80 minutes. Tighthead Pedro Delgado is uncapped beside loosehead Ignacio Calles and hooker Ignacio Ruiz, who have a combined 16 caps.

Even Pumas coach Felipe Contepomi pointedly noted it.

“Everything starts and ends with the forwards,” Contepomi says. “We know what South Africa does and they do it very well. The key will be to impose our game over theirs. If they impose their way of playing, we have already seen it: They are two-time world champions and they do it in a spectacular way.”

There's other history on offer for the Pumas, too. Only two other nations have beaten the Springboks, All Blacks and Wallabies in the same year: England in 2002 and 2003 and Ireland in 2016 and 2022.

But history and form belong to the Springboks, who are favored to wrap up a long sought-after Rugby Championship with an experimental team.

“The trust placed in us is a reality now more than ever,” prop Thomas du Toit says.

“As players we feel the faith placed in us as the coaches continue to build the squad, but that also comes with a big responsibility, and we all know that, and believe in what is being built in the team.”

AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby

South Africa's captain Siya Kolisi holds the Freedom Cup after winning a rugby championship test match between South Africa and New Zealand at Cape Town Stadium South Africa, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is returning to the case of Richard Glossip, who has spent most of the past quarter century on Oklahoma's death row for a murder he says he did not commit.

In a rare alliance, lawyers for Glossip and the state will argue Wednesday that the justices should overturn Glossip's conviction and death sentence because he did not get a fair trial.

The victim's relatives have told the high court that they want to see Glossip executed.

Glossip has always maintained his innocence in the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.

Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing Van Treese and beating him to death with a baseball bat but testified he only did so after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.

But evidence that emerged only last year persuaded Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, that Glossip did not get a fair trial.

Among Drummond’s concerns are that prosecutors suppressed evidence about Sneed's psychiatric condition that might have undermined his testimony. Drummond also has cited a box of evidence in the case that was destroyed that might have helped Glossip's defense.

The court will be wrestling with two legal issues. The justices will consider whether Glossip’s rights were violated because the evidence wasn't turned over. They also will weigh whether the Oklahoma court decision upholding the conviction and sentence, reached after the state's position changed, should be allowed to stand.

Prosecutors in at least three other death penalty cases in Alabama and Texas have pushed for death row inmates to be given new trials or at least spared the prospect of being executed. The inmates are: Toforest Johnson in Alabama, and Melissa Lucio and Areli Escobar in Texas. In another similar case, the justices refused a last-minute reprieve for Marcellus Williams, whom Missouri executed last month.

The justices issued their most recent order blocking Glossip's execution last year. They previously stopped his execution in 2015, then ruled against him by a 5-4 vote in upholding Oklahoma's lethal injection process. He avoided execution then only because of a mix-up in the drugs that were to be used.

Glossip was initially convicted in 1998, but won a new trial ordered by a state appeals court. He was convicted again in 2004.

Two former solicitors general, Seth Waxman and Paul Clement, represent Glossip and Oklahoma, respectively, at the Supreme Court. Christopher Michel, an attorney appointed by the court, is defending the Oklahoma court ruling that Glossip should be put to death.

More than a half-dozen states also have weighed in on the case, asking the Supreme Court to uphold Glossip’s conviction, arguing that they have a “substantial interest” in federal-court respect for state-court decisions.

Justice Neil Gorsuch is sitting out the case, presumably because he took part in it at an earlier stage when he was an appeals court judge.

A decision is expected by early summer.

The Supreme Court is seen on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)