Early arrival will boost Boks against Wallabies, says RG Snyman

Hulking Springbok lock RG Snyman says that the team’s early arrival in Australia will definitely benefit them and leave them better prepared to face the Wallabies at the start of the Rugby Championship, kicking off Down Under on Saturday.

The Boks decided to change things up this year and travelled to Australia last week, in an effort to get over jetlag earlier and have a regular week of preparation for the game at Lang Park in Brisbane (6.45am).

With their poor record against the Wallabies in Australia over the years, the Boks will be hoping that gives them a big boost going into their two games in the country.

“Arriving in Australia the week before the Test was beneficial because it allowed us more time to overcome the jetlag, especially outside of the Test week itself as well,” explained Snyman during a Bok press conference on Monday.

“The guys are now well settled into the time zone, and we are training full-out and feel good, so we are excited about Saturday’s match.”

Snyman is confident that the Boks will be at their very best against the Wallabies, especially after taking on the second ranked team in the world, Ireland, during their drawn two-match Incoming Series last month.

He also alluded to the systems that current Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt set up during his six year stint as Ireland head coach, from 2013 to 2019, which current Irish coach Andy Farrell would have continued with.

Best preparation

“I don’t think we could have had better preparation than facing Ireland going into the Rugby Championship, and we certainly learned a few things in those matches which we would like to carry into this competition,” said Snyman.

“Playing Ireland prepared us really well, because they have a lot of systems set up from being coached by Joe Schmidt.

“There will be some differences, with Australia’s style of play and their players, but in a lot of ways there will be similarities. We are looking forward to facing that challenge as well.”

The Boks will also be facing quite a few unknowns against Australia, due to them not competing in Super Rugby anymore, so they will not have as much familiarity with some of the players and game styles that they would have had in the past.

That will thus be something they will have to come to grips with quickly and Snyman is confident that they will be prepared having analysed them thoroughly.

“The preparation is different these days because we don’t face their players during the season as we did in the past, so there’s a lot more work that goes into analysing the players and their style of play,” said Snyman.