It is now three weeks to the day (Friday) until the opening game of Rugby World Cup 2023 and as that long awaited day approaches so there’s an incremental increase in how much what might otherwise be little things start to matter.
A niggle that might not have been problematic a month or two ago could now have an impact on when a player gets onto the field in the World Cup. A suspension now can impact on the number of games he plays, if at all. You can ask England captain Owen Farrell about that.
KEY PLAYERS WITHDRAWN
Wales coach Warren Gatland withdrew two key players from Saturday’s warmup match against the Springboks for what he described as a precautionary measure. Flyhalf Dan Biggar in particular, a previous captain of his country, is a big loss for this game, but his significance to his team explains why Gatland has decided not to risk him.
Risk is something there is a lot of at this point. But as Bok lock Jean Kleyn put it this week, this is not a time to be thinking of potential injuries. It is better to see these warmup games as part of the World Cup campaign, for they are necessary and it is also necessary for the Boks to start hitting their straps. After this there is the big clash with the All Blacks in London on Friday, and then it is their World Cup opener against Scotland in Marseille.
This isn’t the first time the Boks are playing Wales in the buildup to a World Cup, and South Africa’s national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus won’t remember the previous occasion with much fondness.
It was in 1999, when after a week overshadowed by massive controversy off the field, the Boks slipped to their first ever defeat to Wales. It was at a different point of the buildup to now. The game was staged to commemorate the opening of what was then the Millennium Stadium and has now become the Principality Stadium and it took place in June.
That game 24 years ago came after two easy wins over Italy on South African soil, and there was still a Tri-Nations to get through before the main event, which that year was being hosted by Wales. But the defeat set the tone for the World Cup year, and in retrospect the Boks, coached by Nick Mallett, did well to finish third, with their path to the final only halted by a freaky extra time drop-goal from Wallaby flyhalf Stephen Larkham.
A WELSH WIN WOULD BE HUGE FOR THEM
South African rugby was in a funny place back then, with lots of politics detracting from the sport itself. Now it is Welsh rugby that is in a difficult space, and this game comes at the end of a big week for rugby in Wales, as the Wales Rugby Union have just appointed a new CEO in the form of Abi Tierney.
The hope is that the first woman to take up the role will lead a Welsh rugby redemption, and while wins over South Africa have become far more common place for Wales than they were back in 1999, it will be massive if Warren Gatland’s team can get one over the team that ended the 2019 Welsh challenge at the semifinal stage.
The win over England a fortnight ago was huge for Wales but a similar positive result against the world champions would be even bigger, so this is going to be an acid test for Siya Kolisi’s men as they hit the final phase of their buildup and look forward to the full dress rehearsal that will be Twickenham next Friday.
But a good test is what Erasmus and Bok coach Jacques Nienaber will want. If they didn’t want a tough path through the warmup phase, one that will get the team properly battle hardened ahead of a World Cup that will not present the soft landing during the Pool phases that there sometimes is, they would have chosen different opponents to play against.
The Principality Stadium hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for the Boks in the past decade, and when they scored a five point win there in 2021, it was the first South African win at the venue since 2013. In the interim there were four consecutive defeats.
THESE OPPONENTS NOT COWED BY BOK PHYSICALITY
And there’s something in that record that goes beyond the time of year when many of the games were played - often it has been the last game of the year and it has fallen outside of the international window. The Welsh are one of the few nations who are happy to match the Boks when they bring their A game in the physicality stakes, and it is one of the reasons they boast a fair recent record against them.
With injuries very much a talking point at the moment, and three key players already missing from the World Cup squad, the last thing the Boks will welcome is a high attrition rate. But what they will welcome, as assistant coach Daan Human put it early in the week, is being taken into “the gutters”, and regardless of the result, both teams should emerge from this exercise feeling more battle hardened.
A glance through the Bok team for this game makes interesting reading from the viewpoint of which areas there might be change when it comes to the World Cup proper. Eben Etzebeth is of course the most glaring absentee, for the rest it is up to individual perception as to whether this is a first choice team, the one we are likely to see against Scotland in Marseille on 10 September.
Duane Vermeulen for Jasper Wiese could be one change to the starting side, the hookers are interchangeable when those hookers are Malcolm Marx and Bongi Mbonambi, and Faf de Klerk should wear the No 9 ahead of Jaden Hendrikse when the World Cup arrives. But both of those calls could also be debated.
GOOD TO HAVE KOLISI BACK
It is great to have the skipper back in charge, and there will be a lot of focus on how quickly Kolisi gets game ready. He managed it with one fewer game to play in the warmup phase ahead of Japan in 2019, so there should be no problems.
It goes without saying that Manie Libbok will be under extra scrutiny at flyhalf now that we know he is the go to man at the World Cup in the absence of Handre Pollard, and it will be interesting to see how he handles that extra pressure. The Principality Stadium can certainly be a very claustrophobic place if you make mistakes, and you are not Welsh.
Libbok will be expected to be consistent both in general play and when it comes to kicking from the tee. But it isn’t just Libbok in focus in this game, all the combinations could do with a confidence boosting performance that will put them on the right road ahead of the All Black game and then beyond that.
TEAMS
Wales: Cai Evans, Alex Cuthbert, Mason Grady, Johnny Williams, Rio Dyer, Sam Costello, Kieran Hardy, Aaron Wainwright, Jac Morgan (captain), Dan Lydiate, Will Rowlands, Ben Carter, Keiron Assiratti, Elliot Dee, Corey Domachowski. Replacements: Sam Parry, Nicky Smith, Henry Thomas, Teddy Williams, Taine Basham, Tomos Williams, Max Llewellyn, Tom Rogers.
South Africa: Willie le Roux, Canan Moodie, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Cheslin Kolbe, Manie Libbok, Jaden Hendrikse, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (captain), RG Snyman, Jean Kleyn, Frans Malherbe, Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff. Replacements: Bongi Mbonambi, Ox Nche, Vincent Koch, Franco Mostert, Marco van Staden, Duane Vermeulen, Grant Williams, Damian Willemse.
Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland).
Kick-off: 4.15pm
Prediction: Springboks to win by 10