South Africa A to make minimal changes ahead of Bristol match

The South African A team is expected to make minimal changes to their squad ahead of their second end-of-year-tour midweek match against Bristol Bears next week Thursday.

After their disappointing defeat against Munster in Cork this past Thursday, SA A coach Mzwandile Stick admitted they don’t have many players to call on, but that they would be making some changes for the game.

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“We don’t have the luxury of making a lot of changes. If you look at our squad we only have 25 players currently.  Yes I would love to give some of the other guys an opportunity. These two games for us as a team are about giving guys an opportunity to show what they can do,” said Stick.

“So I don’t think it would be fair for us as coaches not to give the other guys an opportunity. But we aren’t promising game time to anyone. We still have to go and review the game and see where we can maybe change things up.

“I don’t think there is a lot to change in our team. I was very impressed with the fight of the guys and if they can keep doing that I will be happy. As a coaching staff we will sit down and see where we can improve and I have no doubt that next week we will be much better.”

Improved showing

Despite going down to Munster in their tour opener, Stick admitted that the squad, that is a mixture of experienced players who have featured for the Boks and up and coming youngsters, will have learnt a lot from the encounter and will be able to put in an improved showing against Bristol.

“The biggest learning for me, is when you play these Northern Hemisphere teams the territorial game is very important. If you don’t play in the right areas you are going to get punished, and they are very good at sensing the opportunity and then capitalising on it,” explained Stick.

“We also have to improve our kicking game and make sure we kick on our terms. In the (Munster) game there were times when we were supposed to kick and we didn’t, and even at times when we did kick the execution wasn’t perfect.

“The way Munster counter attacked from our kicks, we didn’t apply pressure in the air or apply pressure through the kick chase and they managed to get line breaks from that. So that is something we have to fix.”