Proteas assistant coach Enoch Nkwe believes South Africa’s top speedster Kagiso Rabada will be even more gevaarlik now that he has had a prolonged break from the game.
Having last played for the national team in March before the coronavirus shutdown, Rabada spent nearly 15 months playing non-stop before that.
And Nkwe says: “After such a heavy schedule leading up to the World Cup, someone like KG needed a break.
“He’s carried some niggles, which maybe is a sign of fatigue and he needed to step back.
“You’re always going to need a break when you’re competing at such a high intensity all the time.”
Nkwe adds: “You’re on the road and it’s not just the physical side of things, I think just mentally [taxing] as well.
“Just getting away from the game and doing something different and reconnecting with your own hobbies and just focusing on yourself is exactly what is needed sometimes.
“That’s something I think we sometimes do take for granted.
“We saw in the latter part of the season how some players around the world were starting to get affected from a mental health point of view and that became very worrying.
“Players internationally compete for long periods of time – we’re talking twelve months a year for some. So there’s hardly any family time of time for themselves. I think this break – it was never planned – but it came at the right time.”