This series keeps coming with our mate Joely over at Green and Gold Rugby.co.za telling us why South Africa will take the cup (he really does think so as well you know)
5 reasons the Boks will take the Cup:
Reason 1) Our gameplan at the RWC
The Bok gameplan of winning the primary phases, keeping a structured game and making less errors than you, while kicking you back into your half and making you play is a high pressure, low error, low reward type of game.
The perfect game for a knock-out phase of a tournament. More specifically the RWC. If as the opposing team you watch the scoreboard tick over as you are pinged in your own half for infringing, it gets very frustrating. You HAVE to score tries to try catch the scoreboard. That means high-risk rugby. If you pull it off, boom! You’re the champion. But the Boks play a magnificent scramble defence game, where they literally throw their bodies at you to stop you scoring tries.
2) The “mise en scene” for the final matches.
To lift a term from the nouvelle vague phase of French Cinema – it’s the “time and the place”. More specifically 9pm, Auckland. It’s the end of October and Auckland receives 116mm of rain in September and 93mm in October. That’s a heck-load of water. 9pm is well after dew-point, so even if it not raining the ground is slippery as will be the ball after 30 seconds of a match. If you watch the ITM at present you will see the most likely conditions for the matches. This means kicking, scrums, penalties, knock-ons, rumbling the ball up the middle. This does not mean flick-passes, offloads, multi-phase, full-pace attack. Whose gameplan does that sound like? That’s right B.O.K.S.
3) Our RWC record
4 starts, 2 wins. 50% is a heckuva record.
4) Experience
The Aussies have the youngest squad and we have amongst the oldest (only beaten by Ireland and New Zealand). Almost the entire squad has been in this arena before and won. They have belief in their plan, they have belief in their peer players, the have belief in the Lord (well most of them do).
Looking at the Super 15, Quade Cooper pulled magic out of hat every game and Morne Steyn looked worse and worse. Come the test season it’s the opposite with QC skulking behind the gain line and Morne slotting kick after kick. That’s experience.
5) Our bench
Out of all the top teams our bench looks the best. With the likes of Hougaard, Lambie, Alberts on the bench, we actually look stronger at 60 minutes than most other teams do. The only other team to have a bench to compete with ours are the All Blecks and we’ll see in the semi, who’s bench wins.
So our coach is not the best, but he’s not the worst. Livremont is universally loathed and our guys love de Villiers.
Our prediction is that the real contest happens in the semi with the All Blecks and we just bash the ball over against the Wallabies in the final.
