Two things from the Nkosi interview...

....summarized here: Cape Town - Springbok winger S’bu Nkosi says the players are starting to embrace the team's new defensive system. After being named Springbok coach, Rassie Erasmus has employed defence guru Jacques Nienaber, who has taught the team a rush defence system in 2018. In an exclusive interview with Sport24, Nkosi said: “In terms of the defence system Jacques Nienaber has put in place at national level, it’s basically about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. “It’s a very uncomfortable system and it needs players to make big calls at crucial times. We are, however, getting more and more comfortable with that discomfort. We know that we are going to make calls that will either make or break the game.” The 22-year-old, who played three Tests against England earlier this year before getting injured, described the system as an “adventure”. “Every time there is a strike against us, it’s all in. You burn the ships and there is no opportunity for conservatism. It helps us grow as players because we learn to read the game better and we can plan two moves ahead. Instead of reacting, the current defensive system allows us to be proactive as players.” The Boks conceded 21 tries during the Rugby Championship, at an average of 3.5 tries per match, and ironically scored the same number of tries. ...................... Firstly Nkosi comes across a very thoughtful young player and secondly, the radical change from Brendan Venter's leaky sieve defense becomes apparent. If players are'burning the ships' one can see why Kolbe felt it necessary to rocket inside to snuff out the attack....it didn't work in that case, but one can see the intent. Incredibly White was the original push defence guru.....and after 11 years we are back to his principles.

Insightful fella by the sound of it. What he has said does explain some of the "high risk" attacking tackles. Especially from guys like Faf. Interesting read. I do think teams also need to be able to defend more traditionally as well. If it is a known fact that a team will rely solely on rush defense, some cleverly placed kicks against such a defense can turn a game on its head. Every tactic in rugby has a counter tactic. In other words, I hope we are able to adjust if the rush defense is not working effectively. 

Good point Bloo...the Kolbe incident was a case where simple one on one defence would have probably sufficed.