Boks go in search of 'All Black answers'
REACTION: South Africa, after a day of R&R on Sunday, will reset on Monday and start to focus on a World Cup Final face-off with their arch enemies, New Zealand.
For the Springboks and All Blacks – both three-time winners and the most successful teams at the global showpiece – next Saturday at the Stade de France in Paris is the dream Final.
One of the two nations will become the first to lift the Webb Ellis Cup four times.
New Zealand won on home soil in 1987 and 2011, as well as London in 2015.
South Africa’s victories came on their tournament debut at home in 1995, in Paris in 2007 and in Yokohama in 2019.
New Zealand reached the 2023 Final by breezing past a hapless Argentina, winning 44-6 this past Friday.
South Africa edged England 16-15 in a thrilling, and at times feisty, encounter at the same venue 24 hours later.
Jacques Nienaber and his fellow coaches will have a lot of homework to do this week, as they have not always been as convincing as they would have liked.
Resilience they showed in bucket loads – both in the come-from-behind 29-28 quarterfinal win over hosts France and this past Saturday’s squeaker against England.
After their opening-round loss to host France, the All Blacks found their mojo and beat Namibia (71-3), Italy (96-17) and Uruguay (73-0) in convincing fashion in their remaining pool matches, before squeezing past Ireland (28-24) and the quarterfinal.
Man of the Match Pollard gave credit to his forwards and the scrum, anchored by replacement prop Ox Nche, for their semifinal win over a fire-up England at the weekend..
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“The scrum was unreal and definitely saved us,” he said of a string of second-half penalties.
Pollard admitted that the two teams – having already clashed twice this year – know each other very well.
The All Blacks won 35-20 in the Rugby Championship encounter in Auckland back in July, while the Springboks returned the favour with a comprehensive 35-7 drubbing at Twickenham in the World Cup warm-up match in August.
“It is going to be interesting,” Pollard said, adding: “We’ll have to come up with a very good plan.
“The All Blacks are playing really good rugby at the moment.
“They’re really playing an explosive game, punishing teams from all over the park.
“We’ll have to do homework very well [for the Final].
“We’ll get to that on Monday.”
Pollard, 29, kicked the match-winning penalty in difficult weather conditions in the 77th minute in Paris, four years after booting the decisive points with four minutes left against Wales in the semifinal in Japan.
A week later in Yokohama, he slotted 22 of South Africa’s 32 points in the Final victory over England.
“Leading up to the last few minutes of the game you knew it would come down to something like that,” Pollard told a post-match media scrum in the bowels of the Stade de France.
“There was a little bit of a crosswind in the second half.
“However, the wind didn’t do too much.
“It rained all night, which made it slippery and hard to get a purchase,” he added.
He said when the pressure comes on you just stay in the moment and trust your systems – those things that you have spent countless hours doing in training.
Assistant coach Deon David also spoke about the plans for what will be a nervy week ahead.
“Today [Sunday] is a very good rest day and then we will start making plans for this week,” Davids said.
“It is important to take each day as it comes and to ensure that, from a preparation perspective, we know what we want to do and just not get ahead of ourselves.
“Nothing will change in terms of our approach.
“From a strategic point of view, we will look at maybe making different plans in different areas, but technically and conditioning-wise I don’t think anything will change this week and that is the way we will approach things.”
The Boks’ forwards coach said it was going to be “vital” to get a balance between mental and physical preparations.
“It is one of the things that we need to be smart on,” he said.
“We will find a balance to ensure our players are fresh and ready to go for Saturday.
“Us coaches and the conditioning coach will have a good discussion so that tactically and strategically we pitch up to be the best that we can be, to execute for 80 minutes.”
Scrumhalf Cobus Reinach admitted the build-up this week is important.
“There’s a lot of homework to be done on them and there’s a lot of things we need to fix on our game,” Reinach said
Flank said the final is a “different ball game”.
“You’re playing against a top-quality side in New Zealand, so of course anything can happen there as well,” Du Toit said.
“We have to make sure we prepare well.
“We need to be better at taking opportunities and play the conditions that are there as well.”
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