Ex Supersport
You would think that after such a one-sided win in the opening round of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship the pressure on the Springboks would have been lessened, but the opposite is in fact true.
Picking up five log points last week was what was needed and it represented a great start.
Nothing less than that will suffice again in Mendoza on Saturday though if they want to keep pace with the All Blacks in the quest for the title, and getting the four tries to go with the victory against Argentina will be much more of a challenge than last week’s whopping 73-13 scoreline would suggest.
Nick Mallett, talking on Boots and All on Thursday night, summed it up perfectly – the Latin temperament, which he is well acquainted with after coaching Italy and in France, can see a team that doesn’t look like it feels like playing one week turn into “a bunch of lunatics” the next.
Of course, considering how the yellow cards impacted on them at the FNB Stadium last week, lunacy might not be a good aim in itself for Argentina.
Bok coach Heyneke Meyer said it during the week – emotion and passion can take you only so far, you still have to play good rugby if you want to win at this level.
Nonetheless, we know what Mallett is saying, and you don’t necessarily have to have coached a French, Italian or Argentinian team to realise he is correct.
There have been countless times through history when teams from those countries have been poor, even in parts of games, and then been galvanised suddenly by even the smallest incident into an almost unbeatable unit.
A team from Argentina, the 1982 South American Jaguars that toured South Africa, recorded the distinction of affecting one of the most stunning turnarounds in the history of international rugby.
The Springboks owned them in the first test of a two-match series, winning by more than 50 points, and then lost to a Hugo Porta inspired performance the following week.
It has happened on different scales sometimes too. In 1993 Ian McIntosh’s Springboks were well up at half time in a match in Buenos Aires only to see the Pumas strike back with ferocity in the second half and only lose by a few points.
The same thing happened when Harry Viljoen took the Boks to Argentina for his first test in charge in November 2000, though admittedly his instruction to the players not to kick the ball did play a role there.
It wasn’t as comfortable as last week, but the Boks did win convincingly in the first game against the Pumas in 2012, in Cape Town, and then were fortunate to escape with a draw in Mendoza seven weeks later.
So Meyer has had experience of the unpredictability of Argentina, and of what it’s like to be a visiting team in that city.
“We know that the Pumas will get a lot of support and will have a passionate crowd backing them, and we know they will be playing on emotion and much better than last week. We realise we are starting from scratch in this game,” said Meyer at a press conference in Mendoza this week.
Given all of the above, Meyer would be right if he stressed to his players that the victory comes first, the bonus point is a secondary consideration.
But given the ease with which the All Blacks banked five points last week on Australian soil, where the Boks will do really well just to win when they play in Brisbane in two weeks from now, a four-try bonus point must be an imperative.
Of course, New Zealand could stumble in the early game on Saturday, which in their case probably means failing to get four tries rather than actually losing the match, an eventuality which seems highly unlikely if you consider they are playing last week’s vanquished on their own soil.
Either way though, this is the away game where the Boks need five!
