South Africa v Argentina - Teams and prediction
ROUND FIVE PREVIEW: The Springboks and Los Pumas’ Rugby Championship destiny is in their own hands heading into the penultimate round of the tournament.
All four participating teams enter Round Five of the tournament with a chance to win the trophy.
A loss for the Springboks or Argentina could see the calculator come into play in Round Six to see if there is an opportunity to win in the tournament.
Depending on the outcome of the earlier match between New Zealand and Australia, the picture could also become a bit clearer.
The Boks also suffered a late blow with prop Ox Nche being a late withdrawal and is replaced by Boan Venter.
Marco van Staden is drafted in as hooker cover with Jan-Hendrik Wessels shifting to jersey No.17 as loosehead cover.
Last season, Argentina managed to defeat all teams in the competition once.
They are on the verge of repeating that feat this Saturday and keeping their title hopes alive.
Bok coach Rassie Erasmus praised Argentina for their recent run of form and spoke about the intellectual property they have in their squad.
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“Both teams are obviously in the running for the Rugby Championship,” Erasmus said.
“Argentina has been good this season, beating the British and Irish Lions and Australia.
“I thought they possibly could’ve won both games against the Wallabies.
“They’ve got Felipe Contepomi, who is my age and comes from the same era, and Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe does their line-outs.
“They’ve got a high ball coach who is an Irish guy [Alex Kingsley] and a New Zealander in the mix [Kendrick Lynn]
“It’s a great collective of experience and cultures with a team made up of players plying their trade all over the world.
“They’re organised. They’ve got energetic, young guys who are fearless.
“They’ll try and score three tries [more than us] to be in the mix for the Rugby Championship.”
Erasmus also spoke about the tight relationship the two countries share.
He emphasised how the two sides stood by each other and admitted he had it wrong previously regarding their club system.
Erasmus also highlighted the danger Los Pumas pose with their ability to beat anyone on the day, despite their World Rugby ranking of No.6.
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“We love Argentina. I mean, Agustin Pichot is a friend of mine and we’re very close.
“They’ve always stood by us when we needed them and vice versa.
“Our countries are very similar in certain aspects.
“I know their club system is getting better.
“Last year, I wrongly said they don’t have a good club system and their players are playing all over the world.
“But one of their guys explained to me how the club system works there.
“Their players are sacrificing a hell of a lot.
“They didn’t go back home from Australia. They came straight to South Africa, and they’re all over the world in any case before they assemble into camp.
“They’re also people who are desperate not just on the field but off it as well.
“As long as we can play against Argentina, [we will be happy].
“We’ve seen what they’ve been doing this year. They’re currently sixth in the world rankings, but they can beat any team.
“They defeated us last year. They’re one of the teams since I’ve been involved since 2018 that gave us one of the biggest hidings.
“We love playing against them. We feel we are very similar in how we are as people.”
Argentina head coach Felipe Contepomi praised the Boks and echoed some of Erasmus’ sentiments about the respect the two teams have for each other.
In the same breath, he made it clear that they’re up for the challenge to give the Boks a proper run for their money.
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“For us, it’s a massive challenge to face the double world champions at their home ground.
“It’s never going to be easy. It’s more than that.
“We respect South Africa immensely because they’re the No.1 team in the world at the moment.
“Having said that. We are here to compete, and we prepare according to the challenge.
“We would like to think we can be competitive on the day and give South Africa a good run.
“But we know that it’s a massive challenge, and that’s what we like to face.
“It’s always nice for a high-performance team to face the best ones.
“When you get that opportunity, you need to embrace it.”
Battle of the flyhalves
Santiago Carreras returns to the starting line-up for Los Pumas and will face the exciting Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Erasmus explained his decision to start Feinberg-Mngomezulu and hinted that he could make a few personnel changes during the match, depending on how things go.
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“We’ve given a bit of continuity. It is a crunch game, and last week was a crunch game as well
“It will be like that for the rest of the year. We’re only halfway through it now.
“Manie [Libbok] played really well, but Sacha also had a great performance until he got the head knock [against New Zealand].
“He was good at No.15 as well when he played there for a while.
“I mean Handré [Pollard] is not in this team. We hope things go our way this weekend, and we would like to change it up a bit again next weekend.
“Manie is on the bench, and if things go great, I might give him a run [at No.10] and move Sasha to fullback during the game or Gaza [Damian Willemse] back to No.12 and Andre [Esterhuizen] to loose forward.
“Whatever happens in the game, let’s hope it works out and we can experiment a bit with a lot of respect for Argentina at the same time.”
Opposite coach Contepomi explained his selection of Santiago Carreras ahead of Tomas Albornoz.
In the same breath, he backed the young No.10 to step up when required and explained how he went about during training since his return to the side.
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“[Tomas] Albornoz is returning from a hand surgery.
“Sometimes when you’re back from injury, and even if you didn’t have a major surgery, he needs to develop his way back into the side.
“There’s still cohesion with [Santiago] Carreras playing at No.10, and Albornoz will play his part when he comes on.
“It’s part of those combinations that you have to have to determine what works or not.
“But we are happy with his return and how he has done being back in the squad and in training sessions.”
Players to watch
For South Africa: Damian Willemse stole the show against the All Blacks and is back to his best. His devastating runs from the back and combination with Cheslin Kolbe and Ethan Hooker is an exciting one when the game gets loose. In the forwards, Ruan Nortje will be vital alongside Eben Etzebeth in the line-outs. The Boks’ success in that department hasn’t been great during this tournament, and a lot will come down to those two players in tandem with Malcolm Marx.
For Argentina: Centre Santiago Chocobares is a slippery customer and can cut defensive structures open and get his outside backs into space. In the forwards, it will be about the breakdown battle. The combination of Marcos Kremer, Pablo Matera and Joaquin Oviedo could cause havoc for the Boks, with all three players being able to fill every loose forward role.
Prediction:
@rugby365com: South Africa by 15 points
Teams:
South Africa: 15 Damian Willemse, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Canan Moodie, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Ethan Hooker, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Ruan Nortje, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Thomas du Toit, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Boan Venter.
Replacements: 16 Marco van Staden, 17 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Morné van den Berg, 22 Manie Libbok, 23 Andre Esterhuizen.
Argentina: 15 Juan Cruz Mallía, 14 Rodrigo Isgró, 13 Lucio Cinti, 12 Santiago Chocobares, 11 Mateo Carreras, 10 Santiago Carreras, 9 Gonzalo García, 8 Joaquín Oviedo, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Lucas Paulos, 4 Franco Molina, 3 Joel Sclavi, 2 Julián Montoya (captain), 1 Mayco Vivas.
Replacements: 16 Ignacio Ruiz, 17 Boris Wenger, 18 Francisco Coria Marchetti, 19 Guido Petti, 20 Pedro Rubiolo, 21 Juan Martín González, 22 Simón Benítez Cruz, 23 Tomás Albornoz.
Date: Saturday, September 27
Venue: Kings Park, Durban
Kick-off: 17.10 (12.10 Argentina time; 15.10 GMT)
Expected weather: Partly cloudy at 25 degrees Celsius. Winds North East at 10 to 20 mph.
Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Assistant referees: Pierre Brousset (France), Angus Mabey (New Zealand)
TMO: Brett Cronan (Australia)
