Springboks eager to raise their standards in second Test against Italy

The Springboks will be looking to lift themselves in all aspects of their game for their second Test against Italy at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Saturday.

This after an underwhelming 42-24 first Test win over a weakened Italian outfit at Loftus over the past weekend, with Bok coaches and players admitting their frustration following a below par performance.

Prop Thomas du Toit fronted up to the media at Monday’s press conference and stated that although not a wakeup call, the team were well aware of the high standards that were expected of them and that was what they wanted to reach in the second match.

“I wouldn’t say it was a wakeup call as such, we just set very high standards for ourselves, both in preparing for a match and in the match itself, as well as in training,” explained Du Toit.

“We are always trying to lift ourselves, we compare ourselves to ourselves, meaning we drive ourselves to be better than we were the week before. What went wrong is a difficult question to answer.

“It is just that we want to be better every week and this time we weren’t better. Today (in their review session) we saw the mistakes and now know why we disappointed ourselves. So now we will be working this week on fixing that.”

Admiration for Italy

With Italy having left star and experienced players at home, and having had a few injury disruptions, they are heavy underdogs, but Du Toit reiterated what other players and coaches said in the build-up to the first Test last week.

“As we’ve been saying all of last week, we respect them and their patriotism for their country, as that’s something that resonates with us. There is a good alignment in their squad, and they are gelling well as a unit,” said Du Toit.

“So there are definitely areas we need to improve on this week, while we also have to build on the areas of our game which went fairly well.”

One of the highlights for the Italians in last week’s game was their hugely impressive maul try from a lineout, that rumbled about 20 metres over the line, and Du Toit admitted that was a sore spot for the team and something they wanted to rectify.

“If you look at that maul it was an example of what is becoming the modern way of mauling in that it is not the whole package, but different players coming in to have an involvement,” said Du Toit.

“It was a case of the maul snaking left and right and kind of evolving towards the tryline. We do pride ourselves with our ability to stop the maul, so it was a big negative for us. We are not ducking that and we addressed it this morning.”