Boks to attack All Blacks with ball-in-hand

Springbok coach Allister Coetzee has demanded a more accurate performance underpinned by better decision-making from his side when they take on the All Blacks at Newlands on Saturday, writes Craig Ray.

The Springboks go into the match on the back of a threematch losing streak.

But Coetzee remains confident his team is creating enough opportunities, but that their finishing is letting them down.

“We played well against Australia at the weekend, but a couple of opportunities went begging and if we made better decisions in those situations, we would have scored a few more tries‚” he said.

“We’ve addressed those issues in our analysis since the match and we will be looking to execute much more effectively this weekend.

“It was rewarding to see the number of opportunities we created, but the finishing has to be better.”

Coetzee‚ though‚ said that his team would not retreat into its shell and play boring rugby against the All Blacks and that they would stick to their ball-in-hand approach.

The All Blacks are masters at pouncing on mistakes. But SA will continue to play attacking rugby against the world’s best team at punishing mistakes.

“The game has moved on‚ and you cannot give a team like the All Blacks ball on a platter‚” Coetzee said. “They are a highquality side and there is not one way to beat the All Blacks.

“You have to be accurate in everything you do because there is no way you can beat them by only kicking penalties. You have to score tries to beat them.

“The decision-making is our biggest challenge this weekend and to get that right, the game managers on the field have to be accurate.

“The DNA of this team is to play with the ball-in-hand because they are comfortable in possession. We won’t move away from that.

“The basic blocks of the game such as dominating collisions‚ having a good set-piece and physically being on top of opponents will not change.

“But it’s up to our game managers at No 9‚ 10 and 15 to figure out how to put the opponents under pressure with ball in hand and on defence. The scoreboard in the Albany game snowballed quickly but even so, we feel we had a lot of chances we didn’t take.”

No 8 Uzair Cassiem has been ruled out for six weeks with broken ribs and the uncapped Dan du Plessis has returned to the squad with wings Raymond Rhule and S’busiso Nkosi.

“We have enough looseforward cover with Dan du Preez here and we won’t be looking to bring anyone else in at this stage‚” Coetzee said.