Kolisi and Co hungry for Twickenham win
SIYA Kolisi has achieved more on the international rugby field than most but the one box he has never ticked is to win at Twickenham against England.
He has defeated the Red Rose army in a World Cup final, and beaten them in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein, but never on their home turf and he says that this evening the Boks will move heaven and earth to change this.
“I have never won at Twickenham, and neither have many of the guys and we are ready for this game,” Kolisi warned Owen Farrell’s England.
Farrell and Eddie Jones, the wily coach, don’t need to be told that when the Boks get in the mood for a fight, they not only win but demolish opponents.
There was an inkling of the menacing mood that is building in the Bok camp at the team announcement on Tuesday when coach Jacques Nienaber basically said that the suspension of Rassie Erasmus had pulled the Boks ever tighter together.
“We are a tight-knit group … the players, the coaching staff, and the management,” Nienaber said, dispelling any notion that the group has
been fractured by the Rassie saga.
“Both teams will give it all in a packed stadium and we are ready for action – it is so difficult to win here, you saw that with the All Blacks drawing last week when it seemed the game had been won, and we are going to give it our very best shot,” said Kolisi.
The Boks lost five members of the squad that smashed Italy because of
the closing of the international window but Kolisi said this was water off a duck’s back.
“We are South Africans, we deal with challenges all the time. You arrange a party and then there is load shedding,” he joked. “Seriously, on the field, there is nothing we have not had to deal with this year. This has been a year of getting answers, be it our style of play, the depth in our squad, how to deal with different opposition or even finding new kickers when our main kickers were out.
“As I say, we are ready for this game … ”