Boks’ focus now on England

After making it two wins from two in their end-of-year-tour with an impressive 30-15 win over Scotland at the weekend, the Springboks now shift their focus to the final game of the tour against England at Twickenham this coming Saturday.

Having started with a tight 23-18 win over Wales a week before the Boks stepped it up with a powerful second-half showing to dispatch the Scots and they will now head into their match up against England full of confidence.

It is set to be a grand finish to their UK tour with this being the first meeting between the two sides since the 2019 World Cup final. On that occasion the Boks thumped England in style and that will surely still be playing on the minds of the England players and coaching staff.

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The Boks are also building towards the 2023 World Cup and along with giving a few players a chance to play, they also want to finish the tour unbeaten and take that momentum into next year.

“We want to build momentum going into 2022 along with changing a few things, giving guys opportunities and getting experience into some of the younger guys,” said Coach Jacques Nienaber. “I said to the players after the game that this is going to be a big week for us. I think that playing against England at a packed Twickenham is going to be a nice challenge for us and we must do everything in our power to have a good build-up to the game.”

Key to the Boks wins so far on their tour has been the fantastic platform laid by the two front rows of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Trevor Nyakane as well as Steven Kitshoff, Malcolm Marx and Vincent Koch, who have split the duties in both games and put in huge performances.

That work put in by the two different trios in both games has tired out the Welsh and Scottish teams and allowed the Boks to bide their time and then strike in the later stages of the games.

“We are fortunate that we have two quality front rows and they work in tandem. I thought the guys who started laid the foundation and then the guys coming on had a specific role to fulfil and I felt they built nicely on the foundation that was laid by the guys who started,” added Nienaber.

“Scotland have been the best defensive side in the Northern Hemisphere since the World Cup, so we knew it was going to be tough to break them down.

“You saw in the first 15 minutes we had all the possession and all the territory and it just showed their quality in the way they managed to keep us out. But we knew if we kept knocking and knocking we would get opportunities.”

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