Rugby World Cup 2023 – Lessons from the Springboks’ slap against Romania

The South African staff continues their little experiments. After having fun testing a bench of seven forwards against the New Zealanders, the duo Jacques Nienaber-Rassie Erasmus (who remains extremely influential within the team despite the fact that he is no longer the coach) lined up four scrum halves for us on the sheet (Cobus Reinach holder, Jaden Hendrikse on the bench, Grant Williams on the wing and Faf de Klerk who came in at number 10 to replace Damian Willemse). The other originality is that the duo only had one professional hooker in their group (Mbongeni Mbonambi, starter against Romania) after the crime of Malcolm Marx. Just one, really? No. During the week, Nienaber announced that he still had two options left to throw into touch, in the persons of the two flankers Deon Fourie and Marco Van Staden.

This match was therefore an opportunity to test both men in this very sensitive position of hooker. We thus saw Fourie and Van Staden throw into touch, and Van Staden ended up pushing the scrums into the center of the first line. With success: the South African lineup achieved a 15/17 in touch, and a 6/8 in closed scrum. It must be said that Deon Fourie, who we know well in French rugby since he spent five seasons in Lyon and two in Grenoble, did not discover this hooker position where he was used to playing in France. and even before: “Deon has experience as a hooker from his days at the Stormers (club where he played before coming to France, Editor’s note). He knows how to throw into touch, and we have to thank our second lines for having favored simplicity and efficiency.” The ex-Lyonnais easily found the colossus RG Snyman in the first block, and Van Staden did the same when his turn came: “Marco (van Staden) has always been there to cover the hooker position and today, he did it. Well done to them.”

De Klerk tested at the opening

But Nienaber and Erasmus had other experiments to carry out: “We wanted to give opportunities to versatile players, recalled the first quoted. Rather than spending our time saying so-and-so can play here, and the other can play there, we wanted to put them on the field to see if they could They were really capable of playing in these positions, but not only in training where you never find the intensity and pressure of a match.” This is how Grant Williams found himself on the wing, and how Faf de Klerk, the emblematic scrum half of this team, played for more than twenty minutes at the opening: “Grant scored two tries on the wing, although he is a specialist in the scrum-half position. He is a third option on the wing for us, and he needed to play in that position. Same for Faf , who is a third choice at flyhalf. They needed to gain playing time in these positions, in real conditions. Everything was not perfect, but you never know what can happen in a World Cup, so everyone has to be ready.” Sunday’s match showed it again, with the very last minute withdrawal of pillar Vincent Koch, hit in the knee during the warm-up. But with the imminent arrival of world champion fly-half Handré Pollard, expected this Monday in Paris, we say to ourselves that these Boks are ready for anything…