‘Boks woke up after harsh words’
IF THE Springboks go on to win the Rugby World Cup, they might well look back on a torturous week in Durban following their humiliating loss to Argentina at Kings Park as a key factor in their eventual success.
The Springboks are back in Durban for a week of intense preparation, including daily sessions of semi-contact against African cousins Namibia, before Friday night’s big squad announcement of the 31 players tasked with regaining the Webb Ellis Cup.
Yesterday, breakdown coach Richie Gray, the broada-ccented Scot, smiled and said in his best Afrikaans: “That loss in Durban was
Gray said that Durban was Dublin all over again from 2014. The Boks had beaten the All Blacks in Johannesburg in August and then had opened their November tour against Ireland, but the intensity with which they had played at Ellis Park became a distant memory the longer that unfortunate performance at the Aviva Stadium progressed. The Boks, to repeat the cliché, just did not pitch up.
“There was a massive similarity between what happened in Durban and what happened in Dublin,” Gray said.
“Although this year we did not beat the All Blacks, we had played some great rugby, and there was lot of positivity, as there was last year when we arrived in Dublin.
“But we were inexcusably flat against Ireland last year, as we were against Argentina in Durban a few weeks ago, and the players and coaching staff accept that this cannot be allowed to happen,” Gray said. “We are in the business of winning every game we play. Mentally, there are no days off in Test rugby.”
Gray could well have been talking about the All Blacks, the benchmark in world