Nienaber defends Elton performance

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber defended Elton Jantjies’s performance despite pulling him off the field at halftime when the Boks were 18-3 down against Wales in the firs test.

The halftime substitution helped as Willie le Roux came on and Damian Willemse moved to flyhalf, as the Boks rallied to win 32-29 with a last-minute Willemse penalty.

But Jantjies's performance was not on par with what was expected from the Bok flyhalf and showed how thin the Boks are at 10 with Handre Pollard not considered for the game.

With Johan Goosen injured, they have little other option and the hope was that Jantjies would fulfill that role, a gamble that seemed to have backfired.

While Nienaber did admit that the flyhalf's poor performance was one of the factors for a substitution, he defended Jantjies by saying he had little game time this year and that was a factor.

“We have a couple of boxes to tick and that is why we selected the team like we selected the team. Yes Elton played probably less than 30 minutes in the year, he had a shoulder operation, did his rehab and his Japanese club didn’t go into the finals,” Nienaber explained.

“There wasn’t any games to expose him to, so the only exposure he had the whole year was probably training. We needed to get him in some games and it will always take some time for a guy who has been out for some time.

“Lucky for us he got 40 minutes under the belt today, and obviously you can train as much as you want and you can put guys into as many contact sessions as you can in training, but there is no pressure there. It was good for us to expose him to test match rugby.”

Nienaber was pressed on Jantjies's substitution and said it was not unusual to substitute a player early if they feel he had done his job.

“The plan is you take a guy off when he has given everything, so sometimes we sub a guy at 32 minutes - we have done that before. We have subbed guys at 38 minutes, once we feel they have done their job and what we wanted to see then we sub them and put someone else on.

“You must take performance into account - he hasn’t played any rugby and playing against Wales, we said we are playing a good side - and hats off to Wales. We thought it was going to be like that and it is always like that when we play them.”

“It was good, he got through 40 minutes, and he will be better next week.”

Pollard is expected back next week along with players like Pieter-Steph du Toit and Le Roux.

Nienaber didn’t want to dwell too much on the first half, where the Boks slumped to an 18-3 halftime deficit, saying the positives from the 29 points scored in the second half were more where his focus lies.

“I’d much rather focus on the second half,” said Nienaber. “The second half was pretty much the performance we were looking for. Things didn’t go for us in the first half; we didn’t start well. We started with intensity and a good attitude, but our execution let us down and we’ll have to work on that.”

“We came back from 18-3 and I said to the guys afterwards that they never gave up. To score 29 points in the second half was great. They stayed calm and composed and got the job done.”

The teams move to Bloemfontein for the second test next Saturday before concluding with the third test in Cape Town a week later.