Boks face free kick onslaught
Although the Pumas' scrum is a major threat the Boks are more concerned about dealing with a torrent of free kicks at Newlands.
The South American side are renowned for their prowess in the scrums and will no doubt look to attack from a solid platform in their Rugby Championship opener this weekend, but the Springbok coaching staff have set their focus on making sure their team can deal with the free kicks that result from this area.
Heyneke Meyer believes that the way that scrums are being blown by referees this year means that the major challenge is to look at ways to attack and defend effectively from free kicks instead.
"You work out a lot of attacks from scrums but now with the way that scrums are being blown they are mostly going to a free kick, so you need to work ways to play from free kicks.
"If you look at the England series I think that in the second Test there were nine penalties and free kicks froms scrums," he said.
Meyer's side were exposed at times against England by the quick tap, and he explained that it is something that they have worked hard on in their preparation for the clash with the Pumas this weekend as they are expecting to be targeted in this area again.
"We have really worked hard on defending quick-tap penalties, most of the tries now in games come from turnovers and broken field. A tap penalty is actually a broken field play because your defensive line is not in place.
"Those were from scrums were your tight five are still binding, and all credit to England for taking them quickly and the guys know I am big on discipline so you don't want to tackle someone early, but that is one thing we have worked on the whole week, those were soft moments in the game which is unnacceptable at this level.
"Obviously other teams will look at that and try and expose that, it is one area that I am not happy with and we will spend a lot of time on that in our defensive session, especially from scrums were there are a lot more free kicks so they are definitely going to take quick taps from scrums and we have got to adjust our defence accordingly," said the Springbok coach.
Assistant coach Johan Van Graan echoed those sentiments, explaining that discipline in the front row is now perhaps even more important to gaining momentum through a Test match.
"We have worked quite hard on playing off free kicks and penalties, I think it has come into the game more and more as you might have seen in 2012 throughout all forms of rugby there are a lot of free kicks being given so I guess you have to decide what you are going to do with those free kicks.
"With the scrum now because there are so many penalties and free kicks we have got to plan accordingly so I think it is all about discipline and adapting to the referee.
"I think a lot comes down to discipline on the engage and the props' binding, but we are lucky to have a world class front row and hopefully it goes well," he said.
Van Graan said that having studied Argentina's line-out carefully the Boks are expecting them to vary their options and mix it up in that area, but he is confident that his side will be able to pose a threat of their own with plenty of their own options to choose from.
"We went back quite a long way and looked at their line-outs in the World Cup last year and their last Test match against Wales, they have got quite a few jumping options and they have started to use more than just their two jumpers – they have got four and sometimes five jumpers in the line-out now.
"We are very lucky to now have four jumpers with the two locks, Pierre [Spies] and Willem [Alberts] and whoever gets selected, Siya [Kolisi] has come on as a jumper, I think Marcell [Coetzee] has grown as a jumper which he showed in Super Rugby so we are hoping to contest with four or five jumpers every time but it is about what line-out they come up with on the day and I guess it is about adapting as soon as possible," he said.
By Michael de Vries
