PHYSICAL WARFARE

ambulance after the game. It was pretty gruesome but that’s the nature of the game now and that’s what lies in store for us this weekend.

“You’ve got to be prepared to put your body on the line and take it to places you haven’t been before.”

Roberts does not wince lightly. He is a qualified doctor after all, bound for Cambridge University and a two-year part-time Masters degree in surgery.

He is also the rock in a Welsh midfield decimated by injury, the centre on whom much responsibility falls to tame the Boks’ attack and also to unleash Wales’ strike runners.

But he will feel the pain at Headquarters this evening – both of Pretoria and Auckland four years ago where Wales fell agonisingly short of reaching the final.

“There’s not many more brutal games to lose than a World Cup semi-final by a point,” Roberts admitted. “So 2011 is a huge motivator and each one of us has to bring that to the party.

“Cool heads, bodies on the line and make sure we make the right calls at the right time. We’ll be victorious if we all do that. But it’s not just going to happen. It’s going to take the perfect game from us.”

Wales take heart from having beaten the Boks last November but would do well not to look further back. In the 30-Test history of this fixture they have only won twice.

To make it three, Roberts knows, will take extreme personal sacrifice.

“The way they play the game, if you lose the battle of the gain line you are 80-90 per cent towards losing the game,” he said.

“So that’s the challenge: to get the mind right and put your bodies on the line for physical warfare.”