VIDEO: Orie - altitude is real
VIDEO: Eddie Jones threw a challenge at his charges before departing for South Africa over the weekend with the possibility of a first ever win at Loftus Versfeld in 60 years for Australia.
There is no denying that the wily coach will do everything in his power to make that happen.
And Jones, no doubt, will instruct his Wallabies to dominate the set-pieces and scrums with his big forwards.
For the record: Australia has not won a Test against the Springboks at Loftus since 1963.
Jones’ plans all started with the announcement of his squad for the Rugby Championship. It included some mountains of men like Will Skelton, Richie Arnold and Taniela Tupou.
The imposing France-based duo of Skelton and Arnold – at 2.03m, 145kg and 2.08m, 127kg, respectively – will run down the tunnel at Loftus fully expecting to smash the Boks up front.
Is this an indication of how the new Wallabies will play under Jones? He promised a ‘new style’ of Australian rugby.
But South Africa’s own big lock Marvin Orie, at 1.98m and 113kg not considered an average size player, was not deterred by the prospect of having to bring down some big and heavy bodies this weekend.
He and Jean Kleyn will be the two locks that will have to face a lot of the Aussie onslaught as Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager are set to head to New Zealand where they will have their own big challenges.
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“Are we going to fall over because of one guy? Not a chance. You don’t stand back and you don’t just plan for a specific player,” Orie told a media briefing this week.
“Hopefully the altitude will hit them by the first 15 or 20 minutes. And it will be easy for us. We know some of their strengths.
“We know Arnold, and of course Skelton, has done some really great stuff in the Cup competition in the scrums and set-piece, their captain is also in the front-row.
“We are expecting a competitive set-piece because we also love to compete, so we are looking forward to that.”
Orie said the Springboks’ main focus this week will be to study the opposition in more detail.
“We’ve had a good few weeks, mainly focusing on ourselves. This week we will be looking at the opposition itself. By the weekend we would’ve studies their strengths and weaknesses and hopefully we can exploit that.
“There are some really good players from number one to number eight. They’ll come out guns blazing.”
The Springboks’ forwards coach Deon Davids agree that the Aussie pack will have a huge role to play.
“Eddie is a coach who understands the importance of set-piece dominance in Test rugby,””Davids said.
“So, it will be a titanic battle in the set pieces, scrums, and mauls.”
