The extra pace that his Springboks have to burn out wide and at the back was what appeared to enthuse coach Heyneke Meyer most after his team’s 44-10 win over Italy at Growthpoint Kings Park in Durban on Saturday.
Jean de Villiers’s team scored five tries to one as they made a positive start to the Castle Lager Incoming Series as well as the new season, and Meyer was happy with the way the new players in particular settled in against the Six Nations team.
“Considering we only had six players starting this game that also played against England at Twickenham in the last test of last season, and we didn’t have much time to prepare, I was happy with the performance,” said Meyer.
“You couldn’t expect us to click completely, but the fact that we scored five tries, and that JJ Engelbrecht was also over the line twice more in 50/50 situations, then there is a lot to be positive about. I was very happy with the guys and thought they played well. Willie le Roux showed a lot of pace, and so did JJ and Bjorn Basson. It’s great to have extra pace out wide, and I think Bryan Habana fed off that.”
Habana was a deserved recipient of the man of the match award for his role in setting up the first try and then switching the momentum back in the Boks' favour with a brilliant individualistic try in the second half.
“What amazes me about Bryan is that sometimes I watch him play Super Rugby and he looks really ordinary but then he pulls on the Springbok jersey and he’s a different player. There is definitely place for pace in modern rugby, and it is our aim to up the tempo of our play and score more tries. I thought we lost too many balls in the red zone near the Italian line, and we need to convert our opportunities better, but then Italy are a tough team to play against with their rush defence.
“They beat Ireland and France in the Six Nations this year and I was also at Twickenham when they lost a game against England they probably should have won, so I know how difficult they are to play against.”
Meyer said that the part of the game he wasn’t happy with was the 10 minute period before halftime and the 10 minute period after the break, where he felt his team relinquished their stranglehold on the game through loss of concentration.
“When Italy came back and made it 20-10 we were under pressure. But then we forced a penalty that we kicked and the 13 point buffer seemed to inspire the team to play well again.”
Skipper Jean de Villiers shared Meyer’s views.
“We made it difficult for ourselves after halftime by playing too much rugby in our own half, but then when we took that penalty shot at goal we got back on track and after that we played well again,” said De Villiers, who capped another strong personal performance by scoring the fourth try in the corner after a strong run down the left flank by Bjorn Basson, who was carded early in the second half for a high tackle.
CONFIDENCE-BUILDING WIN
The biggest negatives from the day out for the Boks were the hamstring injury picked up by scrumhalf Jano Vermaak that will probably put him out of the rest of the series and the second half fall-away in the scrumming once Martin Castrogiovanni came onto the field.
“Jano’s situation isn’t good and he is probably out of the rest of the series,” said Meyer.
“As for the scrumming, I was pleased with how we went in the first half but we did struggle, particularly on Italy’s ball, in the second. I thought we still put in some good scrums though even after halftime. But we know we have things to work on in the scrum. It was good though to have Trevor Nyakane on with Coenie Oosthuizen and Chiliboy Ralepelle in the second half and they would have gained from the experience of packing down against a rated Italian front-row.”
The Boks got the outing they were looking for, which was a confidence-building win over a team that has a growing reputation even if on Saturday they were disappointing until their fightback in the middle stages of the game.
At the end of that first quarter it looked like the Boks might end up chasing the 101-0 scoreline they recorded against these opponents here in 1999. But they never added any more points in the second or third quarters as the Italians were allowed back into the game.
The Boks looked much better organised overall though than they were at this stage last year, and behind a strong early forward effort the South Africans showed the glimpses of flair that most supporters were hoping for.
Habana’s run off the fielding of a kick that put JJ Engelbrecht away for his first try in a Bok jersey was a gem, and so was his individualistic try later on, while some of Willie le Roux’s touches in the first half gave us an indication of what he could bring in terms of X-factor as an impact substitute when the Rugby Championship arrives.
The Boks showed good attacking intent early in the game and enjoyed enough of an ascendancy in most aspects of the game that they could afford to kick for the corners rather than at the posts, and they were already 6-0 up when the Boks swarmed over from a lineout in the 12th minute for Adriaan Strauss to dot down.
Although it is true that the Italians were down to seven men at forward for a time after the yellow carding of lock Marco Bortolomi, the Bok scrumming was impressive in the first half, and generally the Boks had a good success rate when they tried to punch their way across the gainline.
With regard to Meyer’s planning, the combination configurations when the substitutions were made provided some interesting indications of how he may be thinking. For instance, when Jan Serfontein came on for his debut, the more senior man, Jean de Villiers, switched to outside centre. And Eben Etzebeth spent the last quarter as the middle of the line jumper after Juandre Kruger left the field and was replaced by Flip van der Merwe.
Clearly after last year was devoted to Meyer and the team just getting through the survival course, now is the time for innovation and experimentation, and don’t be surprised if even despite this win there are significant changes for next week’s game against the Scots in Nelspruit. The Incoming Series is all about widening the playing depth and in that sense Saturday produced what was needed.
“I want to try a few guys so there will be a few changes for next week but I will try and keep the core of the team together,” said Meyer.
