Unpredictable Springboks continue to keep everyone guessing

The Springbok management team once again sprung a surprise on Thursday by naming an unchanged Bok match 23 for their World Cup semifinal against England on Saturday.

It is only the second time in 64 matches since SA Rugby director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and coach Jacques Nienaber took over the Bok coaching job in 2018 that they have named an unchanged squad in successive games.

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The last time that happened was back in 2019 when the same Bok team that beat Japan in their World Cup warm-up match turned out for the opening game of their campaign against the All Blacks, with them going down 23-13 on that occasion.

It was thus a big surprise to see a completely unchanged squad again, when a few changes were expected for the match.

It will be interesting to know what the thinking behind that was, whether it was to catch England off guard, keep the continuity in the side going, as claimed by Nienaber, or to keep everyone guessing ahead of a possible mammoth final against the All Blacks next week?

Building continuity

It is smart to build continuity at this stage of the competition, but some changes could have been made that wouldn’t have disrupted the team.

Canan Moodie is a player that would arguably walk into any other team in the world and it would have been nice to see him get another run, while the fit again Lukhanyo Am should be in the squad.

Am was called up as an injury replacement for Makazole Mapimpi, so it is a big surprise that he hasn’t played as the Bok management risked not calling up a specialist hooker instead.

Following the injury to Malcolm Marx, Bongi Mbonambi and Deon Fourie have done well, but if Mbonambi suddenly picked up an injury this weekend, the Boks could head into a possible final with Fourie as a starter and Marco van Staden as the replacement hooker.

So calling up Am and then not playing him is rather perplexing, as the Boks were well covered at outside centre with the in-form Jesse Kriel and Moodie backing him up, and it would have made more sense to bolster the hooking stocks.

Another surprise was keeping the 5-3 bench split going as the Boks’ 6-2 split is their preferred one while they have been dabbling with the 7-1 split.

But maybe this is part of the mind games, because should the Boks progress to the final, whoever they face will have no idea what to expect.

Heavy favourites

In terms of this weekend’s match, the Boks will be heavy favourites as the current top ranked team in world rugby, while they have also been in much better form than England over the past few years.

England are unbeaten at the World Cup and shouldn’t be taken lightly, but as long as the Boks are serious they should be able to come away with a comfortable win.

The Boks have competed on a very tough side of the draw, with them having had to face tier one nations Scotland, who they beat, and Ireland, who they lost to, in the pool stage and then edged hosts France in a massive quarterfinal.

England, by comparison, have almost had a walk in the park since picking up a good win over tier one Argentina in their opening match of the competition, followed by playing only second tier nations, beating Japan, Chile, Samoa and Fiji on their way to the semis.