South Africa is in the middle of its run-in. The Springboks lost to New Zealand last weekend. A defeat that has left its mark on a squad that has been depleted ahead of the World Cup in September...
After the spanking, South Africa wants to move on. The Springboks, beaten 35-20 by New Zealand last weekend against the All-Blacks on Day 2 of the Rugby Championship, have a chance to bounce back. They are preparing for their 3rd outing against Argentina on July 29. Coach Jacques Nienaber is well aware that he needs to remobilize the troops.
"The last two days have been very important in the sense that we've had the chance to make an honest assessment of what went wrong against New Zealand and identify what we need to correct in our game before our final match of the competition and the World Cup warm-up matches. We were bitterly disappointed with last week's performance, and we're well aware that we can't repeat the same mistakes if we want to get our season back on track and build momentum," he declared after today's training session.
“When we reassemble our focus will be purely on Argentina, so we’ll hit the ground running from Monday” - more here: https://t.co/EPLfi9OHku 💢#Springboks #StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/BhK3Tilsb6
— Springboks (@Springboks) July 21, 2023
World Cup in their sights
With the match against New Zealand in the rear-view mirror, the Springboks will be concentrating on following their own path. The match against Argentina will be no easy task.But they will need to sort out the various problems they saw against the All-Blacks. "We've done everything we can to find solutions to the mistakes we made last week, and we've already started working on them in our on-field sessions, so we can now put that behind us and move forward. When we meet on Sunday, we'll be concentrating solely on Argentina, so we'll be back on the road from Monday onwards," adds Nienaber.
The Springboks are also looking ahead to a major challenge: the Rugby World Cup 2023. This takes place from September 8 to October 28 in France. South Africa, the defending champions, are eagerly awaited. But with a squad depleted by numerous injuries (Kolisi and Ox Nché in particular) and a heavy defeat by New Zealand, the lights are not on green.
