South Africa’s national rugby team has successfully started their title defence in the Rugby Championship, with a solid 32-12 victory over Argentina at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Saturday evening. Despite the scoreline, the Springboks are already looking to improve on their performance ahead of the second test against the Pumas, this Saturday.
Springbok lock, Marvin Orie, was one of the fringe players who ran out against Argentina over the weekend, earning his fifth test cap.
Fresh from their team meeting this morning, Orie says that they will focus this week on improving on their set-pieces, especially the line-outs.
“The standards for this team, as I mentioned, are quite high. We lost a few line-outs and (after reviewing) with the coach and the other guys, we saw that all of them were our own mistakes concentration errors, maybe. So we don’t think it’s much to be concerned about. Argentina has got a good line-out as well. We need to respect them. We have to try and fix those concentration errors we lost in those couple of line-outs we lost.”
Springbok assistant coach Deon Davids says that with their tour to Australasia in the coming weeks in mind, the Springbok management team will likely persist with their new combinations in their second Rugby Championship match against Argentina this Saturday, with numerous first-choice players still nursing injuries.
“In terms of the injury update, obviously, we are a bit thin at scrumhalf and loose forward … a couple of guys there are struggling with injuries. That’s why a guy like Jaden Hendriks came in and had his first cap this weekend and also a guy like Jean-Luc coming in at loose forward, because we got injuries. Dwane, Marco that got injured in the last minute of the game … there are other loose forwards who are injured, Reinhard Elstad … all of them are busy with rehab and they will be ready in the next couple of weeks when we go on tour to Australia and New Zealand.”
? Injury update as Boks look for further improvement this weekend
?️ “The standards in the team are high”
? More here: https://t.co/tB2SUGdyTm#StrongerTogether #StrongerForever pic.twitter.com/ApuzBBhLlW— Springboks (@Springboks) August 16, 2021
