Springboks’ lack of killer instinct must be addressed ahead of Euro tour

The one thing that the Springboks sorely lacked during their Rugby Championship campaign was a killer instinct.

It may have ended up costing them the title after it was decided by very small margins, and they must address it before their end of year tour.

Despite the All Blacks struggles over the past year, which has seen them lose a number of games including against Argentina at home for the first time, they showed that they still have that killer instinct when it is needed.

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They bounced back from that historic loss with a 53-3 thrashing of the same opponents a week later, while they also ended the competition powerfully, as they trounced the Wallabies 40-14, which was enough to seal the title for them.

The Boks on the other hand won all four of their games comfortably, three of them by 16 point margins and one by 17, but were unable to kick on to a massive win in any of those games despite dominating them for large periods.

In the first game of the competition against the All Blacks in Mbombela, the Boks absolutely dominated the game, but missed a slew of chances that saw them in danger of winning by just nine points until a last gasp converted try made the scoreline more reflective of the game.

In their final two matches, against Argentina in Buenos Aires and Durban, the Boks practically produced mirror performances, dominating the first halves, before allowing their opponents to fight back, and then finishing strongly to register comfortable wins.

Taking chances

If they could have taken most of their chances in just one or two of those games, they would most likely have been able to walk away with the Rugby Championship title.

“If you look at last week’s game and this week’s game (both against Argentina) we had such a dominant first half performance. We had them under massive pressure and then we made errors that put us under pressure,” admitted Bok coach Jacques Nienaber.

“We have to be more accurate when we are dominant, because we have been starting very well and then we take our foot off the gas. We have them on the ropes but then poor discipline and execution puts us under pressure again.

“So it is probably fair to say we lack a bit of a killer instinct and that is something that we will need to fix going forward, especially going into the end of year tour.”

The Boks have a tough November European tour, with them taking on the top two teams in the world, in Ireland and France, in their back yards, so they may not have many chances to show that killer instinct.

But with games against Italy and England also on the cards, they will have an opportunity to show their ruthless side, which they will hopefully do in those games.