Having beefed up his All Blacks pack to match the physicality of the Springboks, coach Dave Rennie is bracing for a much-improved effort from South Africa on Saturday, reports DEVIN HERMANUS.
Rennie was speaking on Thursday at New Zealand’s team announcement conference for the second Test of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series in Cape Town, where the Kiwis can seal a series-clinching 2-0 lead.
“We’re aware of what the potential bounce-back [could be]. They’ll be disappointed with last weekend [33-17 at Ellis Park], and there’s been talk around how they bounced back last year,” he said, referencing the Boks’ record 43-10 win in Wellington last year in the Rugby Championship after a loss in Auckland.
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“We’re aware that the Springboks, at their best, are tough to beat anyway, but we’ve talked a lot about us being better.
“We’ve got to be able to lift our level. We know they’re going to be better, but we don’t want to focus totally on what South Africa is going to bring. We want to focus on what we can bring.”
Rennie identified the scrum and contact area as the two zones needing the biggest lift: “Scrum-wise, we’ve spoken with World Rugby around a couple of issues from our point of view, and so we think scrum-wise we’ll be a lot better. That was a massive in for them last week.
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“[The contact area] has been a big focus for us – they’re big men and when they’re full of energy, if they can get into a tackle it’s hard to get go-forward metres.
“Sometimes you just need to bar up, carry hard and win races in support to generate quick ball. We still want to play at a high tempo to give us opportunities and they did a good job last week denying us that.”
The biggest trap, Rennie warned, would be complacency, adding: “Not saying this is going to happen, but it’s us thinking what we did last week is going to be enough to win this week. It’s us having that mindset that we’re going to have to go deeper this week.
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“They’ll just try and do what they did last week, but try and do it better. They might attack us at set-piece, put more balls in the air, try and get a big wall in front of us, and try and spend as much time in our 22 as they can.”
On his selection calls, Rennie said Simon Parker’s grunt at No 6 suited facing the Boks, while George Bower’s promotion to loosehead reflected his impact off the bench. The left wing swap, with Leroy Carter starting ahead of Josh Moorby, came down to fine margins.
“[Parker] suits playing the South Africans. He’s physical. He gives us a bit of size at six. We know the scrum will be a big part of the game again and [Bower] did a good job there.
“If you look at Leroy, probably a better defender, and we think that’ll be important.”
Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
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Having beefed up his All Blacks pack to match the physicality of the Springboks, coach Dave Rennie is bracing for a much-improved effort from South Africa on Saturday.
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