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Springboks peaking at the perfect time ahead of World Cup
With the Boks in the so called ‘group of death’, along with world number one ranked Ireland, their opening match against Scotland is extremely important.
The Springboks celebrate a try during their World Cup warm-up match against the All Blacks at Twickenham this past Friday night. Picture: Juan Jose Gasparini/Gallo Images
The Springboks are peaking at the perfect time as they prepare to defend their World Cup title in France over the next two months.
The 2019 champs ruthlessly dispatched Wales in Cardiff 52-16 and followed that up with a 35-7 win over their biggest rivals the All Blacks at Twickenham, both of them record results which will give the team a lot of confidence going into the showpiece event.
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It has thus been a very successful build up to the World Cup, with the Boks winning five of their six internationals this season and they will be very confident as they take on Scotland in their opening match on September 10.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the Boks however, as a disastrous opening 20 minutes in their Rugby Championship game against the All Blacks in Auckland led to a 35-20 defeat, while they could also consider themselves lucky to have come away from their game against Argentina at Ellis Park with a 22-21 win.
But their three warm-up matches, against Argentina in Buenos Aires, followed by Wales and the All Blacks over the past two weekends, were all impressive wins, and seem to indicate that the Boks have gotten over their shaky start and are now hitting their straps.
Group of death
With them in the so called ‘group of death’, along with world number one ranked Ireland, the Scottish match is extremely important in giving them the upper hand in qualifying from the pool.
If the Boks can pick up an opening win over Scotland it means that they can afford to lose to Ireland and still be on track to progress to the quarterfinals, although they will want to win all of their games.
A loss against Scotland would however firmly throw the cat amongst the pigeons and make for a very nervy pool phase.
Scotland have been in decent form themselves this year, having won six games and lost three, with wins over England, Wales and Italy in the Six Nations tempered by losses against Ireland and France.
In their warm-ups they beat France, Italy and Samoa, but lost to France as well, and should take plenty of confidence into the World Cup.
So the Boks will need to be at their very best from the first whistle if they want to make sure they progress, and their current form suggests they are in the best shape to do that.
