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BLOEMFONTEIN PREVIEW: Boks can turn accidents into happy accidents

rugby19 July 2024 06:00| © SuperSport
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Only the Springbok players and coaches will know how much of the switch towards a more adventurous counter-attacking game in the year before the last Rugby World Cup in France was down to what you could call a happy accident.

The accident in question was Pieter-Steph du Toit’s sending off early in the match against France in Marseille during the 2022 end of year tour.

Down to 14 men, the Boks were up against it and it appeared that their determination to run kick receipt back in that game was inspired by the knowledge that desperate times call for desperate measures.

With Du Toit off the field, they had to back a different part of their arsenal.

My own take, given what the Bok coaches said in the buildup week around how much France kicked the ball and how long they kicked was that running back kicks was always the plan for that game.

But if it was a horses for courses, or rather in this instance horses for specific opponents approach it had implications that went beyond just that game.

The Boks made a habit of attacking from opposition kicks and transitions after that, and became very adept at it.

While the narrative in some sections after the World Cup semifinal and final wins over England and New Zealand respectively was around the Boks being boring, the reality was that the weather dictated their approach in both those games.

Since Marseille the Boks have been a different beast, and they are evolving even further since the arrival of Tony Brown as the attack coach.

INJURIES HAVE ADDED SIGNIFICANCE TO THIS GAME

The subject of happy accidents is relevant on the eve of South Africa’s first ever match against Portugal in Bloemfontein because while Rassie Erasmus would always have intended to play an experimental team in Saturday’s game, significance has been added to the home team’s performance by the mini injury crisis that has followed the Ireland series.

Pieter-Steph du Toit, Malcolm Marx and Franco Mostert won’t be happy about it in their individual capacities, but their absence from the selection mix for at least the first Castle Lager Rugby Championship game away against Australia does mean that the spreading of the selection net and growing of experience in their positions becomes a necessity rather than a requirement.

Stormers blindside flank Ben-Jason Dixon, so often likened by Erasmus to Du Toit, suddenly has a starting position in the Rugby Championship to play for.

Ironically it has often been the injured lock Mostert, who also has a big engine, that the coaches have turned to in the past to fill in for Du Toit on the flank in the past. He did it brilliantly for much of 2021.

Hookers Johan Grobbelaar and Andre-Hugo Venter can aim at a place in the match day squad now that it has been confirmed that Marx will be out for six weeks, and theirs is a position that requires some focus when it comes to the creation of depth.

Let’s not forget the Boks took just two hookers to the World Cup, and they turned to veteran flanker Deon Fourie as the solution when Marx was injured in France.

RG Snyman has become a Bomb Squad specialist but in the absence of Mostert he now gets a chance to show what he could do if he was asked to start regularly as the man who runs the lineout.

Alongside him he has the skipper for the day, Moerat, who also has an opportunity to show his potential for a more regular gig in the starting team should it ever be required.

LIBBOK’S IMPACT ON ATTACK WILL BE INTERESTING

Manie Libbok, who made his debut as a replacement in that aforementioned game against France in Marseille, plays his first game of the season and it is going to be interesting to see what his X-factor and distribution skills will bring to the Bok attacking game.

In some ways the Boks are in a similar place to England when it comes to flyhalves. In England there appears to be an endless debate over Marcus Smith’s suitability for the pivot role, and there are many similarities between him and Libbok.

The major difference being that England, post the international retirement of Owen Farrell, don’t have a Handre Pollard as an alternative.

There are other positions deserving of scrutiny. We understand the dynamic Kwagga Smith brings as a No 8, particularly against a team like Ireland with all those ball scavengers and the way they attack the breakdown.

But off the back of the scrum Evan Roos may well be the better all-round option pending the return to the playing field of the suspended Jasper Wiese.

This is another chance for Roos to show what he can do, and ironically his first experience of international rugby was at this very venue in the middle test of the 2022 series against Wales.

The Boks made 14 changes for that game and lost, and there are quite a few players who were involved then who will be playing again and determined to erase the memory of that narrow defeat.

The chances of that happening again are minimal, partly because Portugal are lesser opposition to Wales and partly because two years on there is more experience in this Bok team than there was in the one that played 24 months ago.

ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO PREVENT CALAMITY

There are areas that may prove particularly testing, and it is going to be acutely interesting to see how Jan-Hendrik Wessels, normally a hooker, goes at loosehead.

But Lukhanyo Am forms an experienced midfield duo with Andre Esterhuizen, something they will reprise with the Sharks in the coming season, and it feels like Cobus Reinach, Makazole Mapimpi and Thomas du Toit have been around for donkey's years.

Tomas Appleton will captain Portugal in one of five changes to the starting team that beat Namibia 37-22 last week.

The inside centre takes the captaincy reins from Nicolas Martins, who has not been selected.

He is replaced by Diego Pinheiro on the blindside flank, with Vasco Baptista also taking the place of Joao Granate at No 8.

Portugal were competitive against some of the bigger teams at the World Cup and beat Fiji and drew with Georgia and if they punch above their weight, they could be competitive for a time at Toyota Stadium.

Ultimately it would be a surprise if the Boks didn’t draw away later in the game to record a comfortable win.

Teams

South Africa: Aphelele Fassi, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Lukhanyo Am, Andre Esterhuizen, Makazole Mapimpi, Manie Libbok, Cobus Reinach, Evan Roos, Ben-Jason Dixon, Phepsi Buthelezi, RG Snyman, Salmaan Moerat (captain), Thomas du Toit, Johan Grobbelaar, Jan-Hendrik Wessels.

Replacements: Andre-Hugo Venter, Ntuthuko Mchunu, Trevor Nyakane, Ruan Venter, Elright Louw, Morne van den Berg, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Quan Horn.

Portugal: Simao Bento, Manuel Cardoso Pinto, Jose Lima, Tomas Appleton (captain), Rodrigo Marta, Joris Moura, Hugo Camacho, Vasco Baptista, Diego Pinheiro, Jose Madera, Duarte Torgal, Nicolas Ferndandes, Diogo Hasse Ferreira, Luka Begic, Francisco Fernandes. Replacements: David Costa, Pedro Vicente, Abel Cunha, Antionio R. Andrade, Andre Cunha, Pedro Lucas, Domingos Cabral, Jose P. Santos.

Referee: Hollie Davidson (Scotland).

Kick-off: 17.00

Prediction: South Africa to win by 20 or more.

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