The city of Cape Town – It’s been interesting to see how the Springboks’ attack has changed slowly but surely in 2022.
The biggest change, though, happened when Damian Willemse was at flyhalf, whether he moved there in the second half earlier in the season or started there more recently.
When Willemse is in charge at pivot, it just seems like the chains are off. Now that Lukhanyo Am is out with an injury, Damian de Allende is taking great angles, the wings are getting the ball in open play, and the team’s over-reliance on him isn’t as obvious.
But tomorrow’s Rugby Championship final needs a different strategy, and not just because Willemse won’t be there.
We all know what we’ll get from Frans Steyn as the general: a strong kicker, a strong defender, and someone who can throw long passes and charge at the gain line. But he’s not a playmaker like Willemse or, dare we say, Elton Jantjies, and he won’t be able to get through Argentina’s defense.
This is one reason why blunt force might be a better way to act at Kings Park.
The Boks have had their chances to score from mauls or use them to set up tries up front, but it hasn’t been as smooth as in previous years.
This is partly because of a lineout that has missed a few chances to score. In fact, the South Africans are only third in the tournament in terms of lineouts won, with 82.1%, behind the All Blacks (89.2%), Argentina (88.4%), and Australia (80).
Tomorrow in Durban, they need to get this right, because the pressure will be on in the race for the title. However, coach Jacques Nienaber doesn’t seem too worried about the numbers.
“I think we lost two lineouts over the weekend. I think we had 14 and lost two, and they were all pretty much the same. I think the teams are just competing. Nienaber said this week, “I would be lying if I told you the lineout stats because I don’t know what our success rate is right now.”
“We see it in a totally different way. One thing is to win the lineout, but our stat is probably delivery, which means getting to your plan. So, that’s probably how we think about it more.
“If you look at how often their lineouts work, Argentina probably has one of the best in the competition. They have a good maul and have scored a couple of tries from mauls. They have a good set piece.”
But Nienaber did talk about the Bok problems in the scrums, which haven’t been as strong as South Africa would have liked. “I thought Argentina had us beat from a scrum point of view,” he said (in Buenos Aires). So, we’ll have to work hard on it,” he said.
With an 82% success rate, the Pumas have the best scrum in the competition, followed by South Africa (81), Australia (78), and New Zealand (75).
It’s going to be another intense battle between the two front rows. Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, a 33-year-old veteran loosehead prop with 73 caps, will try to get under Bok tighthead Frans Malherbe’s skin again.
When he announced his team yesterday, Argentina’s coach Michael Cheika added Matias Moroni to the back line and Juan Imhoff to the left wing. Imhoff will always remember Kings Park fondly because he scored three tries in their famous 37–25 win there in 2015.
Nienaber said that the Boks made mistakes that let Argentina get back to 22-20 last week “because they put us under pressure,” and he praised his team for staying calm to close out a 36-20 win with a bonus point.
He also said that during halftime, the team talked about how Argentina is “a team that never gives up,” and the South Americans proved that to be true.
Their dangerous backs like it when the game is loose and they can give it their all. The Boks let them do this by letting their guard down a bit when they were up 22-6.
If they want to win a full Rugby Championship for the first time since 2009, that can’t happen in Durban (2019 was a single-round event).
So, all of these things show that the big guys up front need to keep things tight and grind them down instead of wasting time by throwing the ball around.
@AshfakMohamed