Yokohama experience negates any doubts over Bok readiness

In suggesting that the Springboks might have expended too much emotional energy on the winning of the second test to be able to reproduce the same intensity and passion in the deciding third test, British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland may have suffered a slight memory lapse.

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Either that or he has deliberate amnesia brought about by the fact that it was his team, Wales, that the Boks beat in a close World Cup semifinal in 2019 to advance to the decider against England. It was a desperately tight game fraught with nerves and plenty of tension, with the Boks having to kick a last gasp penalty in order to advance.

It appears to have been forgotten but it is a fact that the Boks had just a six day turn-around, because their semifinal was played on a Sunday, the day after the England semifinal win over New Zealand, ahead of a Saturday final.

NOT MANY RUNGS DOWN FROM RWC FINAL

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber, who experienced the World Cup win as head coach Rassie Erasmus’ senior assistant coach and defence organiser, is adamant that a deciding test of a Lions series is not too many rungs down from a World Cup final when it comes to the pressure of the occasion.

“It is very similar to a World Cup final, there is the same kind of pressure as these series only come around once every 12 years so when they do they are a big deal and you want to win them,” said Nienaber as he looked ahead to the build-up to Saturday’s decider at Cape Town Stadium.

“It is easier for us this time in comparison to what we experienced in 2019 as you are quite right in saying that we have seven days to prepare this time in comparison to the short turn-around of six days we faced between the World Cup semifinal and the final. That means that we can treat this as a normal preparation week, we don’t have to do anything differently, we don’t have to make changes to the routine like we had to before the World Cup final when our preparation window was shorter.”

YOU CAN’T COMPARE BOKS TO 2013 WALLABIES

Nienaber concedes that Gatland might be right when he speaks about the emotion that goes into a win in an important game like last Saturday’s was for the Boks in the sense that had they not won it, the series would have been lost with a game to play. It was something that Gatland did experience and capitalise on in the 2013 series against the Wallabies, where the hosts came back to square the series in the second test but were thumped in the decisive third.

There are indeed many similarities between that 2013 series and now, particularly in the sense that back then Gatland did exactly what he has done now - he made some key and in some quarters unpopular changes to his team. But the freshening up process worked, something he is clearly hoping will repeat itself this week against a team made up mostly of players who have started and played most of both tests in the series so far.

Gatland might not be comparing apples with apples though if he is comparing that Wallabies team to this Springbok one. The 2013 Wallabies hadn’t gone through the excellent grounding/preparation for a series decider that a high pressured build-up to a successful World Cup final challenge has provided to the Boks ahead of Saturday.

EXPERIENCE HAS PROVIDED PLENTY OF LESSONS

“I speak under correction, but a test is called a test because it is just that - it tests you in every way,” said Nienaber.

“It tests your preparation, it tests your ability to do deal with pressure, it tests you in so many different ways. From our side, we have treated most of the experiences of what we have been through as a team over the past few years as learning experiences. Sometimes when you lose it is a lesson that you absorb and learn, such as when we were beaten narrowly by England at Twickenham in 2018.

“We applied that lesson in coming back to win from behind in the dying stages of the game against France later in the tour, when we went to the 82nd minute before scoring the try that won the game. When we went into the buildup to the 2019 World Cup final we were well prepared for what we faced because we had prepared for it. Having gone through it and being the winners in the final, that will also have been a positive learning experience that should help us this week.

“Last week was an emotional win for us, but then so was the win over Wales in the semifinal of the World Cup. It was very emotional in the sense that there was so much riding on it and it was a close game that had to be decided by a late penalty,” he concluded.

In other words, the Boks aren’t facing a situation now that is new to them. The pressure they face now, the emotion expended ahead of the build-up to the final, was all experienced in 2019. And if it wasn’t, those who know Erasmus and Nienaber will know that the Boks would have prepared for it.

WHAT BOKS HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED, THEY’VE ASSIMILATED

Of course, it is well known that when Erasmus was the coach the Boks often assimilated the pressure that they would face in a potential World Cup final. As in the sense that they would target certain games as absolute must wins and build up to it as if it is a final. They had a great opportunity to dress rehearse for the World Cup final when they played Argentina in the last game of the 2019 Rugby Championship campaign.

By the time the match kicked off the Boks had already been pretty much confirmed as champions, but they still had to go out and perform. Which they did in most emphatic fashion as they produced the kind of command performance against the Pumas that we were to see from them again a few months later in that memorable win over England at Yokohama Stadium.

The Boks would have given similar thought and expended a similar amount of energy in their quest to be ready for whatever is thrown at them in this tense week. Gatland’s team might yet win the series, but somehow it seems unlikely it will be because the Boks can’t handle the pressure or because they expended too much emotional energy last week to be able to get themselves up again for the game that matters most.

That just wasn’t the way it worked when the biggest prize of all, yes bigger than a Lions series by some distance no matter what the coaches say, was on the line in November 2019.