VIDEO: 'You can't talk it right'

Defending champions South Africa stepped up their preparations for their final outing before the World Cup play-offs – a #MustWin Round Four encounter with Tonga in Marseille on Sunday.

And it is going to be a big week of preparations for a critical game in the Springboks’ campaign.

Scrum coach Daan Human, speaking ahead of the team’s first on-field session of the week, said they have put the past weekend’s loss to Ireland behind them and shifted their focus to the Pacific Islanders.

He admitted that sometimes calls go for you and sometimes they go against you, but the Boks prefer to focus on the things they can fix – themselves.

Human said the Boks will not get ‘sidetracked’ by the points difference that could come into the equation in the final dash for play-off places – with the Boks almost 40 points in deficit to the table-topping Irish team.

“First we need to focus on the win,” Human told @rugby365com, adding: “Maybe, then, the points difference will sort itself out.

“You can’t go into a scrum thinking about the points difference, or the next line-out think: ‘The points difference, we are not there yet!’

“In our game plan and in our preparations for the Tongan game we should rectify ourselves first – get ourselves into a position to score enough points to win [the game] before thinking about the rest [such as points difference].

“We must be able to scrum well and maul well against Tonga, if you want to get to a quarterfinal.”

He said they have analysed the Ireland match to see what aspects of their own game they can improve.

(WATCH as Springbok scrum coach Daan Human explains how they are going to ‘fix’ the quagmires that got the better of them against Ireland…)

“We will work on it to get better,” Human said, adding: “We have put a lot of hard work in to improve.

“We will get better and I am convinced we have the players.

“We are going to work to get better.

“We are not going to talk it right, I can promise you that.”

Paid credit to the players for their work ethic – grafting week in and week out.

“They never complain, they never say ‘no, not one more’, because they know it’s working. It’s been working for us in the past and I’m sure it will work for us in the future.

“It’s awesome the way the guys train.

“They can handle it.

“They’re built for this – this is what we do.”

@king365ed
@rugby365com