5 talking points | RWC exposes flaws in Bok Women's game but Aseza Hele announces arrival

Their 75-0 defeat to England in the final pool stage game rounded off a chastening return to the Rugby World Cup for the Springbok Women after an eight-year absence.

Although there have been some improvements in the way the women's game is administered in the country in that intervening period, the tournament exposed the existing, glaring systematic shortfalls in SA Rugby's management of women's rugby.

Some players, though, used the platform to reveal themselves to the rest of the world, chiefly No 8 Aseza Hele, the standout South African performer throughout.

Aseza Hele breaks through

If there is a player that said to international scouts watching, "Come get me", it was the 27-year-old Boland Dames player.

She was immense for the Bok Women, who were on the back foot in all their losses to France, Fiji and England.

She terrified defenders from the back of the scrum. In open play, she took them on almost singlehandedly at times.

In the game against Fiji, which the SA women were expected to win, she fought against a physical tidal wave that came from the Pacific Islanders to earn not just her opponents' but the world's respect.

Experience desperately lacking

Flyhalf Zenay Jordaan retired at the end of the tournament as the highest-ever Test-capped Springbok woman with 36 appearances.

She lost four years of international activity in the time when SA Rugby voluntarily quit playing women’s Tests from 2014 to 2018 - a contentious decision that proved its folly in New Zealand this month.

Many players who could have benefitted from regular game time were robbed because of the self-imposed international isolation.

In that time, the Springbok Women went from once losing 18-17 to England in 2013, in which Jordaan and captain Nolusindiso Booi