Boks excited, but nervous about playing in front of fans again

The Springboks are a little nervous over how socialised they are to playing in front of a big crowd supporting the opposition because many of the players have not done that for 18 months, giving them another factor to adapt to when they play Australia on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

While the Wallabies have been the whipping boys of the All Blacks of late, the Springboks are approaching their first away game in the Rugby Championship with great caution because Australia, especially at home, have always been a side that throws up different, awkward questions for them.

And more than 25,000 mostly pro-Australian spectators in the Super Stadium, with Rugby Australia implementing a “bring your mate for free” campaign, will be another curve-ball for South Africa to handle.

“We’re really excited to be playing in front of a capacity crowd again, but it means we will have to adapt our on-field communication,” forwards coach Deon Davids said Tuesday. “But it will be fantastic to play in front of a big crowd and hopefully it will spur our players on to perform even better.”

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“To have fans out there is going to be unreal, I can’t even remember how it feels to play in a full stadium,” prop Ox Nche said. “I’m a bit nervous about it but also very excited.”

And the Wallabies will also bring a totally different threat to Argentina, who the Springboks beat twice, with Davids saying lineouts and the tempo of their play are the two areas the world champions will need to adapt.

“They have different philosophies. We had to be smart to keep Argentina at bay and play the way we wanted to,” Davids said.

“Australia are very competitive in the lineouts, they turned over a few New Zealand balls and put them under pressure. That’s an area we really want to improve, it let us down a bit in our last game. The set-pieces will be well-contested and we have to make sure we execute well so we have a solid base and top-quality ball.

“In my past experience coaching against Dave Rennie, when he was with the Glasgow Warriors, the Waikato Chiefs and now the Wallabies, an attacking philosophy is part of his approach. He likes to play with ball-in-hand, to build pressure with the ball.

“I’m sure they will bring the same approach but just try to do it better in certain areas. The tempo was very high in the matches between the Wallabies and All Blacks.”