Top Five Youth Week stars: Coaches will have their hands full with plethora of talent

SA Rugby's Youth Weeks are officially over with schools reopening for the third term on Tuesday as the winter rugby season draws to an end.

There's still the Under-18 tournament towards the end of August that generally draws in European teams that compete alongside the South African Schools' Under-18 sides.

The significant part is that there is still an Under-20 World Championship in South Africa next year, with the Academy and Craven Weeks being the staging ground for players to progress to the age-group World Cup.

Here are players who didn't just excel at the weeks, but may ask pressing questions post their Under-18 showings:

Jean Erasmus (Free State)

South Africa's well stocked tight head prop well may soon run dry, but Erasmus has shown real promise in the past two years.

Initially not a starter last year at Grey College, he muscled and scrummed his way through Craven Week to become one of the more pre-eminent number threes in the country.

Tight head is a difficult position to play and remain consistent in, with the turnover of players being high and the staying power being low.

If he continues with his excellent development graph, he may be an important scrum anchor in years to come.

Close contenders: Sibabalwe Booi (Eastern Province), Simphiwe Ngobese (Sharks), Herman Lubbe (Western Province)

Batho Hlekani (Eastern Province)

It would've been expected of locks to make merry in the muddy George conditions, but this was the week where blindside flankers thrived.

Hlekani, who is from Gqeberha but goes to Graeme College in Makhanda, was truly exceptional in Eastern Province's strongest side in nine years.

He did everything expected of a blindside flanker, even though the position is massively contested in South African