Springboks will need different plan for France — Pieter-Steph du Toit

The Springboks will be targeting an improved performance on all fronts when they take on France in their end-of-year-tour match at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille on Saturday night.

Bok flank Pieter-Steph du Toit was quick to admit during a press conference this week that the team’s plans did not work out in their tight loss against Ireland last Saturday and that they wanted to fix that against the hosts this weekend.

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“If you look at the past weekend’s game in Dublin, we were very disappointed. We didn’t do what we said we were going to do and we didn’t stick to the plans that we had for the game,” said Du Toit.

“However, the environment in the forwards group is always good. We always try to be better and make new plans. So we’re trying to improve this weekend and ensure that the vibe is better for this weekend.”

France are currently on a superb run of victories that started in November last year, with them having won 11 in a row, and they will be keen to end 2022 unbeaten, and a big step towards that will be adding the Boks scalp to their ever growing winning cabinet.

Targeting forwards

However the Boks have been studying the French game plan extensively and are targeting their opponents forwards in the coming game and key to that will be making sure that their maul, which was nullified against Ireland, fires against France.

“France is currently on a good winning streak. They have the heaviest pack of forwards in world rugby, so we need a different plan for them. We have to challenge them in areas where other teams never tested them,” explained Du Toit.

“Their game plan tends to preserve their forwards’ energy and we have to work around that. We have been working hard to improve our mauls.

“Opposition teams always come up with new tricks against us and the more we experience that, the better it will be as it allows us to learn to adapt.”