According to Assistant Springbok Coach Deon Davids, the Springbok teams’ contingency plan has been put in place to accommodate few players with “bumps and bruises”. He was commenting in terms of the teams’ injury management. Coaching will look towards giving a few new players the opportunity at the game to test their level of play before the major test against the British and Irish Lions.

“The guys have come back from not playing for a long time and, as we said from the beginning, the Springbok plan is to select the best possible players for the test match,” said Davids.

Davids mentioned that after nearly 20 months the Springbok squad has maintained the level of physicality and- in terms of test rugby- the squad had to just merely adjust to the competition. The team responded well in terms of the level of intensity for their first test match against Georgia, as they understand what is expected primarily from a lineout perspective. The team achieved 94% success rate and scored two tries immediately. Davids commended the Georgia team especially as they were presented with challenges and climatization issues. The challenges Georgia brought to the Springbok set pieces, but the opposition conceded many penalties.

“Obviously there are things we want to improve on and apply in our second game, from a scrum perspective the guys applied themselves well and only conceded one penalty,” he added.

“We didn’t start slow from the blocks but as the game went on we got more into our stride and became more physical and we stuck to what the players knew they had to do and we can only get better,” said Davids.

The Springbok team practice was cancelled due to a positive covid-19 case following an announcement Monday 5 July 2021. The team takes on Georgia again in the second week of the tour.

Source : Fatima Said and SA Rugby Communications