Boks are not sure what to expect from Aussies

There hasn’t been much certainty from the Springboks since they have arrived in Adelaide over why they have such a poor record in Australia, but reserve backline player Elton Jantjies might have come close to it when asked what he was expecting from the Wallabies on Saturday.

The Boks play the Wallabies at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday afternoon Australian time (3pm in Australia/7.30 in South Africa) in the third match of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and are chasing a win that will break a drought that extends back nine years to 2013.

Even before that, the Boks have battled Down Under, with wins being only just a little bit less rare than hen’s teeth since the start of professionalism and the regular competition contact in what was initially the Tri-Nations in 1996.

A lot of it probably comes down just to the Aussies being smart and being well coached, with pinpoint strategy and planning being an essential for a rugby nation that has often lacked the brawn and forward and the all-round depth to get away with anything less than the smartest tactics.

When it comes to scrumming, and also stopping mauls, it has often meant the Aussies have had to push the letter of the law. As they did in the first game between these teams last year, when they blunted the Bok kicking game by putting players in the way of the chasers and they also got away with quite a lot of off the ball niggle.

In that game they scraped home with a late penalty awarded from, of all things, a scrum, but it was the second game, where the Wallabies won more comfortably, that should most concern the Boks as they prepare for Saturday. In that match there was an element of surprise that prompts Jantjies to acknowledge that the South Africans won’t know what to expect from their opponents until the early minutes of the Adelaide Oval battle.

As happened in 2009, when the otherwise all-conquering Bok team under the coaching of Peter de Villiers and captaincy of John Smit were unexpectedly outplayed in Brisbane a week after they’d won handsomely in Perth, the Wallabies introduced elements of the Bok game into their strategy.

“Against Australia we will find out in the first 10 minutes what to expect from them,” said Jantjies as he looked ahead to Saturday.

“We will only know then what kind of game they will play against us as they have surprised us in the past. Last year they kicked a lot against us (in the second game) whereas before that they had mostly run at us. We are going to have to be ready to react on the day to what they will bring.”

There shouldn’t be too much doubt what the Boks will do in Adelaide. Their contestable kicking strategy was blunted a bit by the All Blacks in Johannesburg last time out but it worked a charm in Nelspruit seven days before that. More specifically, if you watch the video of the excellent Argentina win over the Wallabies in San Juan 11 days ago, you will note that several of the Pumas tries came from kicks.

The Wallabies did appear to have a weakness in that area of their game, and it should go without saying that the Boks will aim at exploiting that weakness, while also mixing up their game a bit, something they have been doing recently.

While the Boks have a poor recent record in Australia, their last game on Australian soil actually went well, and Jantjies was a big part of that. It was the final game of the 2021 Rugby Championship against New Zealand on the Gold Coast, and Jantjies defied those who question his temperament by producing some important plays as the Boks won a nailbiter at the death.

It was Jantjies who kicked the winning penalty, which was admittedly from in front of the posts, but before that he had produced some great touches in general play as well as snapping over an important drop goal.

He is in a similar role on Saturday as he plays off the bench and feels he is in a good space to repeat those heroics should it be necessary as the month and a half of hard training he has done since he wore the Bok No 10 against Wales in Pretoria has prepared him well for the task.

Jantjies was criticised for a poor performance, and it was indeed error-ridden as the Welsh opened a big halftime lead on the world champions. However, Jantjies perhaps rightly prefers to look back at that game in the context of it being his first game in several months following his recuperation from a long-term injury.

“Against Wales I had 40 minutes and that was quite nice after the injury,” he said.

“Everything was always going to be about me putting in hard work for the next five to six weeks after that, and I have now done that. I had to make sure I was ready and would stay ready, and I feel good for the weekend and am looking forward to the game.

“We haven’t won against Australia in Australia for a long time and we want to put that right,” he added.