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.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
