Springboks look to be battling
The memory of last month’s Bledisloe Cup games won’t fade in a hurry.
Australia tried hard, and actually enjoyed some good periods against New Zealand. But when the heat really went on, their setpieces disintegrated and they were repeatedly punished for soft turnovers. Which is why subsequent events in Brisbane are such a worry.
You can call the Wallabies a lot of things, but reliable and clinical wouldn’t regularly be among them. And yet, when they met South Africa in Brisbane on Saturday night, it was Australia’s set pieces that stood up and Australia who punished their opponents’ mistakes to win 23-18.
Listening to Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus afterwards, inspired even less confidence in the side.
‘‘To gift 14 points on a platter to a team, you’re going to struggle to win the game,’’ Erasmus said.
‘‘I thought our mauling went very well compared to last weekend, the scrums were good in the first half, but then there were moments when we lost vital scrums and lineouts, so it was a mixed bag of different mistakes.’’
Executing the basics is the least we’ve come to expect from South Africa but, if they can’t even do that, then Saturday’s clash with New Zealand in Wellington has the potential to get pretty ugly.
With the best will in the world, the Wallabies aren’t in the All Blacks’ league when it comes to preying on weaknesses.
With Saturday’s loss having been preceded by a 32-19 defeat to Argentina in Mendoza, the Springboks don’t come to Wellington with much to recommend them.
Not that All Blacks coach Steve Hansen entertains those types of thoughts.
‘‘They’ll be a big challenge. They pride themselves on lifting their performance, particularly when they play us, and they’ve lost two now so they’ll be pretty desperate,’’ Hansen said yesterday.
‘‘We’ll need to match that and be desperate ourselves.’’
Hansen’s not about to show his selection hand this far out from Saturday. But even he wouldn’t go so far as to suggest the All Blacks’ 23 won’t be vastly different to that which beat Argentina 46-24 in Nelson.
‘‘There’ll be some changes obviously, because we didn’t pick the No.1 side last night. If there is such a thing, so you’d imagine there’ll be some changes,’’ Hansen said.
‘‘Some guys played well last night, no doubt about that, and it’s just a matter of making sure when we do our selections we pick the right horses for the right courses.’’
Everyone will have their own idea who the right horses are, but a backline of Ben Smith at fullback, Waisake Naholo and Rieko Ioane on the wings, two of Ryan Crotty, Jack Goodhue or Sonny Bill Williams in midfield, then Beauden Barrett and Aaron Smith in the halves would do a job for you.
It’s just a question of whether Hansen wants Jordie Barrett at 15 and thinks Naholo would be better for a spell, with Ben Smith on the right wing.
Kieran Read, Sam Cane, Liam Squire, Scott Barrett, Sam Whitelock, Owen Franks, Codie Taylor and Karl Tu’inukuafe then pick themselves in the pack, given lock Brodie Retallick’s injury. He’s likely to be out for three to six weeks, due to a shoulder problem.