If there was one aspect of the international season that hasn’t gone to plan for the Springboks just yet, it is the impact of their bomb squad in the first test against Italy in Pretoria a few weeks back.
Coach Rassie Erasmus has already indicated he was “frustrated” by that performance and it forced him to alter plans to give some younger players a start in Mbombela this weekend against Georgia, and it is something the team need to get right.
The Boks don’t always measure their success by scorelines, but the second half performance against Italy at Loftus - combined with the embarrassment of Italy scoring a 22-metre rolling maul try and closing the scoreline to “win the second half” certainly has had an impact on the team.
PLAYERS PUT ON NOTICE
Some players have been put on notice, and while Erasmus has picked a team for Georgia with a number of young players - including an uncapped front row and a relatively inexperienced backline, the bomb squad is there on the bench and needs to fire.
That was also the message from double World Cup winner Kwagga Smith, who fronted up to the media on Wednesday, and admitted the bomb squad was “defused” in the Loftus game, and this is something that is a key element to get right this weekend.
There has definitely been a clear message that the impact wasn’t good enough and Smith knows the team needs to up their work rate and impact in the second half.
While Georgia aren’t expected to trouble the Bok scoreline, a repeat of the Loftus antics may well give other teams in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship a lot more confidence in countering the Bok bomb squad in their games.
IMPACT FROM BENCH AT LOFTUS LACKING
“With the Loftus match, we did not have the impact from the bench that we wanted. We didn’t influence the game, but I must also say that Italy played much better in the second half than in the first,” Smith said ahead of winning his 53rd cap for the side from the team hotel on Wednesday.
“I think our guys coming off the bench want to live up to the Bomb Squad reputation. You play 40 games off the bench and kind of build up a reputation. Then in one game things don’t work out for you, and suddenly people say the Bomb Squad has been defused.
“We know we may not have been at our best on the field that day, so we’re definitely going to want to put that right.”
Smith also weighed in on the Vodacom Bulls’ decision to appoint his former Lions mentor Johan Ackermann as the new coach at Loftus Versfeld for the franchise, saying the former Bok lock was an excellent coach who would get the best out of the Bulls players.
BRILLIANT COACH
“He is a brilliant coach. I enjoyed working with him. I was a youngster and played under him for a long time,” Smith said of Ackermann.
“We were unlucky not to get a Super Rugby title, but he’s a really good coach. He is a coach who has that ability to get a group of people together, all aligned for the same goal. And that is important.
“And I think he will make a success of his career at the Bulls. The players that are there are brilliant, and he will be able to get them aligned and hopefully win a few trophies. I am excited to see him there and how he does.”
Ackermann will join the Bulls next week.