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Siya says Boks are focusing on rugby and not the side shows

rugby23 July 2021 13:10| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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Siya Kolisi © Gallo Images

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi says his teammates are focusing only on their goal of making South Africa proud by winning on the field and are not paying any attention to the mind games British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland appears to be playing ahead of the series.


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Speaking on the eve of the first test at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday, Kolisi ignored attempts to be drawn on issues brought up by Gatland such as the supposed ego dent suffered by the Boks when the South Africa A side didn’t dominate the scrums last Wednesday and Rassie Erasmus’ role as a water boy.

The Boks are noted to be a team that gets extra motivation from talkative opposition, and there is a long history of Bok teams being inspired by media stories pinned on change-room walls or videos circulated to the players. But if that is happening ahead of this series, Kolisi is certainly not going to admit it.

Instead, he stresses that everyone is treating the war of the words that has enacted itself off the field between Gatland and national director of rugby Erasmus for what it is - a sideshow.

“No, what is being said is not firing me up. My only job is to play and my only job is to do what the team requires of me,” said Kolisi.

“It is my job to make sure I am ready to play and ready to do the best I can for the team. There are people who have jobs that look after that other stuff. My role is to speak to my players and prepare for the game. I don’t get involved in those kinds of things as I have a much bigger job to do on the field.”

Kolisi also seemed a bit perplexed, even a tad irritated when it was suggested to him during an online eve-of-match captain’s press conference that the Boks would be chirpy on the field, with a particular target being the Lions’ South African born wing Duhan van der Merwe.

“When has anyone seen us do that? We haven’t sledged at all, and we are definitely not going out there to focus on one player. We are not going out there to chirp, we will save all our energy for what we need to do on the field to win the match,” he said.

A MOTIVATION THAT TRANSCENDS THE GAME

And winning the match is an important task for the Boks as they have once again found themselves arriving at a major contest with the country they representing needing the upliftment that comes with a Bok victory.

At the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, it was the gender-violence epidemic back home and the state of South Africa’s economy, now it is the devastating effect of the Covid pandemic and last week’s unrest that is motivating the team.

“First and foremost, the emphasis must be on us being well prepared so that everything we do in terms of the plan we put in place is on par, that the plan is there and can be executed, because we can’t achieve what we want to do if we don’t win,” said Kolisi.

“Unfortunately it always seems to happen that in a big tournament or series there is something not going well in our country. We are South Africans as much as we are Bok players and what affects the country affects us.

“We know we are in a place of privilege in that we are doing what we love every day and that what we do can have the effect of putting smiles on people’s faces. We know that when we win, the people feel like they win too. We are all pulling together, we all have family and friends who have suffered (through the pandemic and the unrest).

“So while we are privileged to do what we do, we must ensure we deliver our utmost best and give everything in the knowledge that if we do well we will put a smile on someone’s face," he concluded.

SKIPPER HAD TO DEAL WITH HIS OWN CHALLENGE

Kolisi has had to negotiate a personal bump of his own in the final build-up to the series in the form of the positive Covid test that prevented him from playing the SA A game that had to suffice as the Boks’ final warm-up game to the series. And he also had to miss training while he was isolated in the team hotel in Johannesburg when most of the rest of the group had moved to Cape Town.

“It’s been tough, having tested positive for Covid and having to follow the protocols. But I was in every meeting online and seeing what the preparation was. I had to do all the tests to be cleared to play in this game and was successful with that,” said the Bok skipper.

“I was lucky in that for me there were not a lot of symptoms, very close to nothing at all. I was fine by the second day. The challenge was just the mental thing of isolating in the room. I was still part of meetings and was still talking to the team. I added input for the guys who played in the games that I missed. I was talking to Marco (van Staden) before the SA A game, making sure he knew everything he needed to do and understood what his job was.”

A GOAL SET IN 2019

Kolisi added that being part of and winning a series against the Lions was the next frontier the team had set themselves to aim at breaching after winning the World Cup in 2019 and the players were excited that the opportunity to emulate what the 2009 team achieved has finally arrived.

“We were in the same mind as the guys who won the World Cup in 2007. I was speaking to (that team’s captain) John Smit last night. He said he was very excited about this series even though he is not playing. There have been lots of challenges and some of the guys have had to battle their way back from big injuries to be part of this series.

“We know most of us will never get another chance to play the Lions so we need to make the most of it now. It is very rare for players to play the Lions twice like Frans Steyn and Morne Steyn are doing. Even the guys who are not playing are really pulling together in an effort to support us and they want this series win as much as we do. We will do anything to win this series.”

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