BOKS BASHING WILL GIVE PIVAC WELL-EARNED REST

WAYNE PIVAC hasn’t slept soundly in more than three months but he will be able to rest easy tonight if his Wales side create history and topple the Springboks in South Africa.

The tourists have been widely written off ahead of the Test series after they concluded their Six Nations campaign with a woeful defeat to Italy in mid-March.

Asked what it would mean for his side to become the first Wales team to win against the Boks in their own backyard, head coach Pivac said: “Well, I’ll probably get my first decent night’s sleep since the end of the Six Nations. And that’s a fact.

“It just doesn’t go away. The thing with coaches and players is you’re not happy until you get your next win under your belt.

“It’s been a long time between drinks and of course there is that memory. If you finish on winning the Six Nations then it’s quite a nice memory.

“But losing to Italy has been challenging in terms of the pressure you put on yourself.”

Wales will be hoping to silence the critics and those who are emphatically dismissing their chances of any success on the Highveld or in the coming weeks.

Pivac (left) admitted he understood why his side were being written off and urged his players to respond on the pitch.

He added: “Yeah, but it’s understandable. You’ve got to look at where the two teams are coming from. They’re the world champions, in their own backyard, at altitude. It’s a tough place for anyone to go and from the outside looking in, from our last performance, you would write us off.

“The main thing is that we haven’t written ourselves off.”

WALES: L Williams; Rees-Zammit, North, Tompkins, Adams; Biggar (capt), Hardy; G Thomas, Elias, D Lewis, Rowlands, Beard, Lydiate, Reffell, Faletau. REPLACEMENTS: Lake, Carre, Francis, Alun Wyn Jones, Navidi, T Williams, Anscombe, Watkin.