South African, New Zealand and Australian Rugby (SANZAR) has confirmed that it will reintroduce the 20-minute Red Card law trial for the Rugby Championship in which a red-carded player can be replaced after 20 minutes. The law was first trialed in Super Rugby in 2020 and last year in the Rugby Championship and protects 15 on 15 contests which SANZAR says fans, broadcasters and unions believe are important.
Meanwhile, the Springboks continue with their preparations for the first match of their Rugby Championship campaign against the All Blacks in Mbombela in the first week of August, conscious that discipline and execution will be paramount.
The Springboks know they have much to work on in the build-up to back-to-back fixtures against New Zealand in August. Bok coach, Jacques Nienaber admits that South Africa was far from perfect in the Welsh series, but at least they know exactly where they stand at the moment.
“Wales were our first game for 2022, you almost get a little bit of a marker for where we are at and then we tried to build during the Wales series. I think the main thing for us is to control and to fix things in our game. We weren’t perfect against Wales by any means there is a lot of stuff we have to work on and we have to improve on,” says Nienaber.
New Zealand was shown up against Ireland in an unprecedented series loss to the men from the Emerald Isle. However, the Springbok hard men, like Marvin Orie believe the All Blacks will give the Bok set pieces, a thorough test regardless of the frailties that were exposed by the Irish.
“The All Blacks are known to have a strong set piece; they have got a lot of world-class players especially the second rowers. I think Retallick has been injured and Whitelock also missed one game but they are world-class players. It will be a good challenge for us luckily in my opinion we also have some world class locks and the competition has been good so far. We have had a good week of preparation so far and we spent a lot of time analysing and trying to get plans in place already for the next week so it is going to be exciting,” says Orie.
Boks management are also not reading too much into personnel changes in the Kiwi ranks, a reaction to that series loss to Ireland. Nienaber cites the example of the Springboks having to replace their backline coach mere months before the World Cup and that didn’t impact the team negatively in the slightest.
“If you think back at 2019, we were in the Rugby Championship, we were how many games away from the World Cup? I think the changes happened after New Zealand, so two games against Argentina and one game against Japan and then we went into a World Cup and we got Felix Jones in, in less than a month so I guess it is what it is, so you just learn to deal with it,” Nienaber added.
Against the All Blacks, the Springboks will need to be in a heightened state of vigilance on the field. They weren’t naïve against the Welsh but they also weren’t very streetwise, and a team like New Zealand could well exploit that state of affairs.
