Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber will field another mix and match selection in the return match against Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday but you can expect him to move towards a more settled team in the final Rugby World Cup warmup matches against Wales and New Zealand.
Nienaber named his 26 man squad for the first warmup game as he prepared to fly out to Argentina following his team’s lamentably poor performance in a narrow 22-21 win over the Los Pumas in the final Castle Lager Rugby Championship clash in Johannesburg at the weekend. It looks very much like he’s using this match as a chance to give his fringe players a run, with the players not involved so much so far getting game opportunities.
The selection would have been planned before the start of the international season so it is interesting to speculate on whether he might have changed his mind had he seen how the two games following the impressive Rugby Championship opener against the Wallabies in Pretoria three weeks ago would turn out.
For after the Emirates Airlines Park game he readily admitted that perhaps his willingness to mix up selections in the early weeks of the international season starting the buildup to the World Cup in France has cost his team a chance to build up momentum. And with the Boks starting their World Cup campaign with a crucial Pool clash against Scotland in Marseilles on 10 September, momentum is what they will need heading into a tournament that includes arguably the most challenging Pool phase yet to be faced by a Bok team at a Rugby World Cup.
Nienaber said that he expected the team’s performances to become more consistent once the squad became more settled.
“The easiest way to get cohesiveness is in team selection and that’s probably where we put the team under pressure,” said the Bok coach.
“Every week they’ve had a different prop, a different hooker, a different rhythm so that’s almost the nice thing, as we take them out their rhythm because of the way we have chopped and changed in terms of team selection, and as we get closer to the World Cup there will definitely be more consistency in selection.”
PUMAS GAVE BOKS A GOOD WORKOUT
The final Championship game against the Pumas was anything but the comfortable win for the Boks that really should have been expected in a game at altitude, where with the exception of when they play the All Blacks the South Africans can be considered to have a 15 point start. To put it simply, a massive improvement will be needed or the Boks will be coming home from this World Cup in mid-October, which is when the quarterfinals are scheduled to be played. Or worse, considering they play Scotland, Ireland and a Tongan team boosted by the infusion of players with All Black experience, they may not even fail to get out of the Pool phase for the first time in history.
However, while South African fans would be right to be gravely concerned at what was another abysmal, error-ridden performance that certainly didn’t erase the memory of the equally poor opening 20 minutes against the All Blacks, both Nienaber and skipper on the day Duane Vermeulen saw some positives in the fact that Argentina provided such tough opposition.
Nienaber praised his team for not buckling under the pressure after the yellow carding of Damian de Allende (for a deliberate knock on) with seven minutes remaining. The Pumas scored their two tries in that period, but the second (to close the winning margin to one point) came long after the siren had sounded.
“We’re going to experience similar situations at the World Cup and to manage it in the way that Duane [Vermeulen] did at the end with the yellow card was very good,” said Nienaber.
“The amount of attitude the players had in defence was outstanding; the amount of attitude they had in their ball carrying was outstanding. We made a couple of mistakes with tactical and technical stuff but that the easy stuff we can fix.
“But making it personal with the defence and the ball carrying is what I was incredibly proud of. It wasn’t the nicest game, but it was good to grind out the win.”
DISCIPLINE REQUIRES WORK
Vermeulen admitted that the team had made their task more difficult for themselves with ill-discipline.
“It was a stop-start game for us, and I think our discipline wasn’t great,” said Vermeulen.
“Sometimes penalties just happen and then you get those avoidable penalties that you shouldn’t give away and that was tough for us. If you take away those avoidable penalties it would have been a better game for us.
“You’ve got to give credit to Argentina. We saw how they won against Australia and against us in Durban last year they came back with a real onslaught and scored a couple of late tries. They play for 80 minutes. and we had to keep up but we’re happy with the win and we’ll take it from there.”
Indeed, but taken together with the performance against New Zealand in Auckland two weeks ago, it can’t be denied that the Boks are far from driving forward in the imperious fashion they appeared to be when they thumped Australia in the Rugby Championship opener.
SPRINGBOK SQUAD TO TRAVEL TO ARGENTINA:
Props: Thomas du Toit, Steven Kitshoff, Vincent Koch, Gerhard Steenekamp, Trevor Nyakane.
Hookers: Bongi Mbonambi, Joseph Dweba.
Locks: Lood de Jager, Jean Kleyn, Marvin Orie.
Loose forwards: Jean-Luc du Preez, Evan Roos, Jasper Wiese.
Utility forwards: Deon Fourie, Franco Mostert.
Scrumhalves: Jaden Hendrikse, Herschel Jantjies, Cobus Reinach.
Flyhalf: Manie Libbok.
Centres: Lukhanyo Am, Andre Esterhuizen, Jesse Kriel.
Outside Backs: Makazole Mapimpi, Canan Moodie, Kurt-Lee Arendse.
Utility back: Damian Willemse
