The experimental phase is over so the side the Springboks will field against Wales in Cardiff in the first of two critical final warmup matches is likely to be close to what we will see when they open their Rugby World Cup campaign against Scotland in Marseille on 10 September.
In some ways, with the World Cup squad announcement behind them and their places at the main event now confirmed, the Bok players, who flew out for Europe from Johannesburg at the weekend, are in a bit of an invidious position. And injury now, and they do happen, will mean they don’t get to France.
Yet they still have to hit the straps, for there is another frontier to cross for those who get to play this weekend - they need to confirm they are good enough to play in the first choice team and thus be part of the big games of the tournament. So there can’t be any slacking, and there has been a hint of some players, and indeed the whole team on occasion, holding things back a bit before now.
And here’s a question: Are the players who have already tasted World Cup success in Japan in 2019 as hungry as the ones who have yet to sip from the Webb Ellis trophy? Those are questions that have hung in the air during an international season that has seen two strong performances - against Australia in Pretoria and Argentina in Buenos Aires - and two poor ones against the All Blacks and the Pumas in Johannesburg.
NO ROOM FOR ERROR
With Scotland remaining an unknown quantity but certainly doing enough against the French this past weekend to suggest they will be competitive and threatening in the opening game, there is now no room for error for the Boks. The all-important momentum that is everyone’s quest ahead of a World Cup is yet to emerge as the tidal wave that was promised and hoped for after the opening Castle Lager Rugby Championship game at Loftus.
That is partly because coach Jacques Nienaber, in an understandable desire to spread the selection net as wide as possible as well as give all his players game opportunities, has been mixing and matching his selections. By his own admission, there’s been little continuity.
The side likely to start at the Principality Stadium though should have a core of players who played together in 2019 and also who won the British and Irish Lions series two years after that. With of course a few exceptions, and in this regard the squad announcement last week, particularly the absence of three key players in the form of the injured Handre Pollard, Lukhanyo Am and Lood de Jager, has given everyone a clearer idea of what should be focussed on.
BIG RESPONSIBILITY FOR PLAYER WITH JUST SEVEN CAPS
In particular, attention will be intensified on flyhalf Manie Libbok. The DHL Stormers pivot has had three starts now to go with four caps earned as a replacement. Which is meagre if you consider how much director of rugby Rassie Erasmus, both in his current guise and as head coach in the buildup to 2019, has stressed in the past the importance of having experience in that position.
If you do a roll call of the flyhalves who have won the World Cup for their teams you will note experience and proven ability at the highest level before the tournament as the predominating trend. Which is why there perhaps should have been more fuss made last week about the omission of the fit Elton Jantjies than there was of the absence of the clearly still rehabilitating Pollard.
Jantjies has been in trouble off the field but on the field he has earned 46 caps for his country. And he’s worn the Bok No 10 far more often than Libbok or for that matter Damian Willemse. He wouldn’t be the first option, but given he was also part of the squad that won in Japan in 2019, and played a big role in preparing the team for the final even though he didn’t feature in the Yokohama decider against England, surely he should have been there as one of the flyhalves.
The fact that the coaches have gone for four scrumhalves does open up an interesting possibility - are they seeing Faf de Klerk as their third flyhalf option? Regardless of all these questions though, the pressure is on Libbok to produce the kind of performance, and that means slotting the easier kicks from the tee where maybe he feels more pressure, that will inspire a bit of confidence ahead of France and perhaps reduce the angst about Pollard.
This week’s game will be followed by the one against New Zealand in London six days later and it is a fact that Libbok has yet to start against the All Blacks. He’s also never been part of a team that has won against an opponent ranked in the top five in the world. So this is a big two weeks for the No 10 and while Nienaber appeared at a departure press conference to take some of the pressure off Libbok and the others who come in for the missing three, unfortunately in professional sport pressure, and the questioning, comes with the territory.
ORIE NEEDS TO CLEAN UP HIS DISCIPLINE
And Libbok’s former Stormers teammate Marvin Orie, who is now listed as a Perpignan (France) player, should be under as much scrutiny. As Nienaber says, Orie has won the last five games he has been part of with the Boks. That includes England at Twickenham last November.
But the jury is still out on him, particularly on his at times questionable discipline at crucial times of the game. It could cost the Boks at a critical moment so Orie needs to find a way to be more squeaky clean now that it looks likely he will be entrusted with the task of being Eben Etzebeth’s partner in the second row with RG Snyman looking likely to be a Bomb Squad specialist.
Am of course will be missed as much as Pollard as he is perhaps the finest outside centre in the world, and who can forget his brilliance in a losing cause against the All Blacks in Johannesburg last year, let alone the touches he produced in the 2019 final. Jesse Kriel has been excellent in the two games he’s played and maybe it is time for his ship to come in after being relegated to being Am’s understudy from 2018, but he too will be a focus as the Boks look to synchronise ahead of a World Cup kick-off that for them is now less than four weeks away.