South Africa happy to cede centre stage to others for now

FINISHING IN STYLE: South Africa's Canan Moodie scores a try against Tonga. Pic: AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

Of all the possible scenarios and mathematical formulas that could decide which pair from South Africa, Scotland, and Ireland will escape the clutches of Pool B this week there was one that Jacques Nienaber – and hardly anyone else – had considered.

It was the wrong side of midnight after South Africa’s slightly tortured bonus-point win against Tonga in Marseille on Sunday and the woman directing the press conference let it be known that there would be just one more question for the top table before calling it a wrap.

Head-to-heads and three-way ties are all in play but it wasn’t just that the last query was put to him in French that caused Nienaber to ask for a second interpretation. He listened once, twice and then repeated the question himself a third time before answering somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

“Could I believe in a scenario where they would decide that they want to get this amount of points and then get South Africa out of the way? That would probably be match-fixing, I would say. I hope not. Rugby is clean, we wear those t-shirts. I hope not because that would be extremely disappointing, don’t you think?” 

The bottom line right now is that the Boks are all but safe. For South Africa to be evicted it would require Scotland to win by at least 21 points and for Ireland to pick up a bonus point. It’s no wonder Rassie Erasmus has since said he would much rather be in their seat right now than either of the Six Nations sides.

If they feel comfortable where they are then maybe it is because they have been here before. South Africa had 12 days to kill between their 66-7 defeat of Canada in the pool stages and a quarter-final meeting with Japan four years ago and a 23-point win against the hosts was hardly suggestive of a side that was rusty on its return.

The wait this time will be almost identical so the plan for now is to give a squad that has lost the wing Makazole Mapimpi to injury and gained centre Lukhanyo Am as a replacement a three- or four-day leave of absence before reconvening with that last eight tie in Paris in mind.

The reigning champions go forth with plenty of chatter surrounding them.

The losses of Malcolm Marx and Mapimpi go into the same side of the ledger as Lood de Jager, who failed to make it back from injury in time to make the plane for France, but the return against Tonga of Handre Pollard went a long way to balancing the books.

If the reintroduction of a consistent goal-kicking No 10 suggests the Boks are done with their left-field thinking in terms of personnel then the presence of scrum-half Grant Williams on the wing two days ago and the repeated use of utility forwards Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden at hooker suggests otherwise.

The latter pair fared well against Tonga. Fourie’s lineout throwing was almost perfect and he reverted to flanker when van Staden replaced captain Siya Kolisi with roughly half-an-hour to go. That said, it was a curious all-round performance against a side that, to be fair, was markedly better than the one that caved to Ireland and Scotland.

The manner in which Tonga bypassed the rush defence with some sweeping skip passes by out-half William Havili was eye-opening and complemented by a ferocious effort from a physical pack that constantly took the game to the Springboks. The three tries they scored was the least their performance merited.

That’s one more than the team leaked in 2019 through all seven matches of a victorious campaign but Nienaber, publicly at least, was more inclined to highlight the efforts of an opposition that can create moments of magic from very little than get down on a side that was some way short of what would be its strongest.

"Sometimes when you concede tries you have not necessarily done something wrong - they have just done something that was incredibly brilliant. Sometimes you just have to sit back and applaud it. Sometimes it is just good attack.

“You can't cover everything on a rugby field. If there was a try conceded because of a lack of attitude and work rate or a system error, that is something we can improve on.” 

They’re done for now, but far from finished.