Boks: 'Go big or go home'
The only way Australia’s dangerous backline players will have an impact on Sunday’s World Cup quarterfinal is if South Africa open the door for them, according to Springbok centre Jaque Fourie.
“Sure, they have exciting runners throughout their team, but our defence has always been solid,” Fourie said.
“We hold the record for the least points conceded in the World Cup, and would like to keep it that way. We just have to stay in our pattern.”
The broad-shouldered centre, having taken a lot of the responsibility of organising the Springbok line, was undoubtedly set to step it up a notch at Wellington’s Cake Tin.
“All our focus is on this game and it is do-or-die,” Fourie said.
“We don’t want to go home, we want to go all the way.”
He attributed a lot of the team’s success to the principles that assistant coach Jacques Nienaber had introduced and the hard work he had put in with the team.
Meanwhile, the solution to the Quade Cooper conundrum, Fourie believed, lay in neutralising Wallaby scrumhalf Will Genia.
“Genia is always around rucks and Jacques has emphasised that,” he said.
“So the faster we set in, the quicker we get into position and slow down their rucks, and the better it will be for us.
“They have a few steppers, which will make things tougher, and we will have to close up quicker with the guys inside, but the harder we work on defence the harder they have to work on attack.
“But we don’t want to defend all the time. We would also like to take the ball through phases.”
Fourie said the role fetcher Heinrich Brüssow would play, in ensuring the Wallabies were deprived of quick first-phase ball, would be vital to their cause.
He also highlighted that defensive astuteness would mean little without killer instinct on attack.
“Like in all Tests, it is important to start well, be effective in your execution and use the chances.
“You only get two or three opportunities in a game, and if you don’t use them, it will bite you in the butt.”
SAPA
