Two down … Ireland next, as Boks look to keep momentum going in France

For the Springboks to successfully defend the Rugby World Cup crown they won four years ago in Japan, it’s two down, five to go at this year’s edition in France.

Not that Siya Kolisi’s squad will be looking further than Saturday’s crunch Pool B clash against the No 1-ranked Irish at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis at 9pm.

It is a vitally important match for both teams in the sense that the game will likely decide the top two spots in the pool while also lining them up against either France or the All Blacks in the tournament quarterfinals.

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Whichever team wins will also likely confirm their place in the knockouts with a pool game to spare, although that may not matter as both teams are expected to win their final pool matches in any case.

However, Bok coach Jacques Nienaber refuses to count his chickens before they hatch and is still wary of Scotland, who the Boks beat in their opening game, with them possibly able to reel in whoever loses this weekend’s match.

“This is an important game and we all knew that when we came into this pool. Everyone knew this would be a tough pool to get out of. From the first game against Scotland there was massive pressure and then Romania and now Ireland and then there is still Tonga,” explained Nienaber.

“A win for us or for them will put you in a good position to get out of the pool and that is why there is pressure. But that was there when the World Cup started.

“So it doesn’t actually change for us personally because the pressure was set, we said we are playing knock-out rugby from game one. Nothing has changed from game one.”

Terrific form

Both the Boks and Ireland have been on a terrific run of form of late and it is all set up to be a blockbuster matchup between the top two ranked teams in World Rugby.

Ireland, as the top ranked team, has been imperious over the past few seasons and are on an incredible 15 game winning run, which includes a tight 19-16 win over the Boks in Dublin on the end-of-year-tour last year.

The Boks have recently risen to second on the world rankings as they seem to be peaking at just the right time and come into the game with plenty of momentum.

A big win over the Wallabies to get their season started back in July was tempered by a disappointing loss to the All Blacks in Auckland a week later.

But since then the Boks have won six straight matches, including record wins over Wales and the All Blacks before the World Cup, while they began their campaign with a massively important win over Scotland, followed by a thrashing of Romania this past weekend.

A huge battle is thus on the cards between two in-form teams and who will come out on top will be anyone’s guess.