South Africa are en route to New Zealand for the second round of the Rugby Championship against the All Blacks at the Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland on Saturday.
Fresh from their impressive opening round win over Australia in Pretoria, the Springboks have been cautioned that they must convert opportunities or they will be punished against the Kiwis.
New Zealand trounced Argentina and are currently travelling back from South America to be ready for the Boks.
The Springboks were impressive against an opposition that promised much, but failed to deliver.
What is of concern to the Springbok management is the amount of chances created on the highveld in front of a partisan crowd that were not converted.
Bok assistant coach, Deon Davids says the players need to be far more clinical, especially when playing in foreign climes.
Davids says, “We are pleased with the performance, the guys have not played in a long time, it was good to see them align so quickly and putting up such a good performance. Obviously looking back there was good rewards but we also created a lot of opportunities and I think we would say we could use some of the opportunities a bit, more especially at this level when you get an opportunity, it is important to ensure that you come up with the points.”
Rather than talking too much about the win over Australia, the Boks have sat up and taken notice of how New Zealand took care of Argentina in Mendoza.
Davids says, “Its an impressive start from the New Zealanders. It is quite a physical and intense performance from them and obviously leading 31-0 at halftime just showed you how New Zealand if they get any opportunities how they will use that, so for us we looking at that, it is going to be important that we really look after our possession .”
It has been argued that because of the South African franchises’ inclusion in the United Rugby Championship and European cup competitions, the country’s players may have a blind spot when it comes to their old southern hemisphere rivals.
While it was evident that Australia has not been up to much, it seems New Zealand are still as potent as ever, and the Boks will need to be far more ruthless or they will be punished.
Davids says, “Especially when you face an opponent like New Zealand at home, you need to be very clinical in terms of your performance especially when you get a lot of opportunities, because if you don’t and you give them opportunities they will capitalise and they will turn that into points.”
The travelling squad is set to meet up with the 13 players already in New Zealand, who have fully acclimatised.
The Bok team to face New Zealand in the second round of the Rugby Championship will be announced on Tuesday.
