ALL WEEK, THE Springboks camp has oozed confidence and it was no different at today’s Captain’s Run at the Stade de France. A day out from tomorrow’s massive pool clash with Ireland, the message was, more or less, “let’s see what you’re really made of.”
South Africa assistant coach Mzwandile Stick was full of praise for Ireland, but every compliment was followed by a reminder that the Springboks aren’t exactly low on quality either. They are the defending champions after all, so they know a thing or do about delivering on the biggest stages.
“You’re playing against the best team in the world, so as a team, we have to lean more towards our strengths,” Stick said.
“I don’t think there’s going to be much change from how we normally play the game, and if you look at the challenges we’ve had so far this season, we’ve played the All Blacks twice, probably one of the best attacking teams in the world. If you’re not at your best in terms of your defence and set-pieces, they’ll punish you.
“Then Scotland, probably also one of the best and organised attacking teams, and Ireland are similar to how Scotland normally do things.
“We know they’re not just number one for nothing, surely they’re doing something right. They’re a well organised team, but again, it’s a World Cup, sometimes you get different challenges and you’re going to have to adapt, and that’s something about us as Springboks, we’re good travellers. You can take us anywhere, we know how to adapt to the conditions and again, from South Africa, everything we are facing, we are so driven and that’s a strength of our team.
“I don’t think we’re going to change much, but we’re going to focus on what we do best. It’s going to be a tough game, and that’s how we want it. We don’t want any easy games.”
When the two sides met last November, Ireland came out on top of a tight contest in Dublin. Stick was quick to highlight that even though there will be a strong Irish presence in Paris tomorrow – with over 30,000 Ireland supporters expected at the Stade de France – there are different pressures involved when playing away from home, and at a ground where South Africa have fond memories.
“World Cup is a different story, they’re not playing at home, we’re not playing at home and once again if you look at the history when it comes to the field where we’re playing, 2007 this is where we had a good record (South Africa’s second World Cup win).
“I’ll never forget our former president Thabo Mbeki with John Smit at that time, I was a supporter, watching at home in New Brighton, I will never forget those images.
“There’s a good history here, the last game we played here against France in the 84th minute Bongi (Mbonambi) scored the winning try.
It goes back to that point, how we normally do things. We’re good travellers.”
As ever, much of the focus in the build-up has been on Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber, who have opted for a controversial 7/1 split on the bench this weekend. The two South African coaches have transformed a team who were badly in need of a lift when they came on board in 2017, but Stick outlined that like Ireland, much of what the Springboks do is player-driven.
“If you look at everyone involved in their team, everyone loves what they’re doing,” he explained.
“We also work very hard to make sure that everyone in our camp is well-prepared. Sometimes we must have fun, the environment is a very, very open environment for players to be who they want to be.
“You get different characters in our team. Pieter-Steph (du Toit) who doesn’t say much, guys who are always loved like Trevor (Nkayane) and Siya (Kolisi).
“Our policy is we just want players to be who they want to be and bring their best, the most important thing for us is whatever works for you to be ready for the game tomorrow, pitch up tomorrow.
“Internally in our system, in our team, we’ve got great leaders and we always empower them to contribute in how we play the game and we always bounce ideas into them and we always discuss it as a team,” he continued.
“It’s not only a one-way thing where we as coaches are driving our plan. We’ve got great players that have played over 50 Test matches, Eben (Etzebeth) has played over 100 Test matches so we always try to pull from our players and it’s working for us. Just one thing I always tell people, we as a Springbok team we normally learn the best through tough times.
“If you remember the game we played against the All Blacks in Auckland, I think that’s one of the games that really brought us close as a team and the results have been going well so far.
“We don’t expect an easy game tomorrow and we actually don’t want it to be easy. We want it to be tough just to prepare us in case we go to the play-offs.
“We play our best rugby when we’re under pressure. If you remember, going back to 2019, after losing the first game and people kept on saying, ‘you don’t win the World Cup’ after a group-stage game and we’ve showed people it is possible.
“We know one thing for sure, when we get to the play-offs, we’ll go hard. That doesn’t mean tomorrow we’re going to hold back, we’re not going to hold back. We’ll go hard at them and we know they’ve got Scotland waiting for them, we’ve got Tonga waiting for us. It’s not going to be an easy game but we’re well prepared for it.”
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A ref and 2 umpires unable to spot Walsh spinning 4 times without a hop of a ball for the second goal. Shambolic officiating that’s basic rules they’re missing and it’s looking like it’s killed the tie.
Ah stop jack. Take off those blinkers.. Kerry were up by seven at the time… Game was gone from Roscommon at that stage… Roscommon are just out of their depth….
Blinkers? When when have Mayo and Ros got on? And I bet you thought the same in Killarney. There’s a stiff breeze at Roscommon’s back but the second goal standing out it beyond then whereas 4-5 down they had a chance.
They were up by 5 mate. 1-6 0-4. Should have been disallowed. Sure they want the dream final after all
Well eamon, at least the rossies can keep on dreaming… Just not even nearly good enough to mix it with the big boys…
Jaysus, Roscommon are pi$$ poor…
Com’n Kerry
I’d say most neutrals would want Roscommon to win today or in fact anyone apart from Kerry people
I’d rather a strong Kerry as they have a chance of running the Dubs close at the end of the year, Roscommon don’t have that chance
Hon the Kingdom
Rossie Keeper is a lucky man to escape a black card.
Nothing new with Kerry getting soft frees .
of course ye ever get soft frees
never even
Ref is a joke so far some really soft frees to kerry!!
Such as? Funny how the frees are soft when Kerry are getting them
Very soft frees on both sides.
Big game for both. Will go a long way in preparation for the championship
Walsh took 10 steps before he scored the 2nd goal. Good man ref.
Darren o Sullivan was dragged down before he scored his goal and there should have been a black card for the Roscommon keeper, or did you miss that?
Walsh took too many step, should have been a free out alright. Roscommon keeper should have seen black. He’s giving the same ‘soft’ frees to both teams for fairly minor pulling and dragging but he’s being consistent. Kerry getting more of them because they are the ones running at roscommon from inside the 40. Kerry by far the better team with or without Walsh’s goal
Ros’s first time out in Croker against a top 3 team and they went man to man. madness. McStay should know better he’s railed Mayo for exposing our full back line for years, easy be a hurler on the ditch however.
kerry are just reaffirming they are the second best team in the country.
Jaysus, kerry playing fierce dirty, foul, foul, foul, #
Nice boys get nice girls, nice boys don’t won’t all Ireland’s …. Think they’re up by 10pts…. Foul foul foul must be the way to go
Arrah if you took the goals outta it….
Roscommon are suffering from stage fright or just no good?but on this form kerry will hammer Dublin in the final!!.
I hope Donegal have more ambition up front today, lady game against Dublin was horrible. They had been very adventurous in the 3 games they won then reverted back to type. I know they can’t open up against Dublin as they might be in danger of taking a hammering. Still, I’d like to see them come out of their shell a bit. Good luck to all team involved.
How are they doing that paul???