Springboks set to shake things up against Italy

The Springboks will be looking to shake things up when they take on Italy in their end-of-year-tour match at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 3pm).

The Boks employed a more expansive game plan against France last weekend, which worked for the most part, and it seems like they will employ a similar running game as they continue to work out their attacking identity.

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“We have tried a couple of different things. I am sure you would have seen in the game last week we ran a whole lot more with the ball. We had a specific plan and the coaches just want us to go back to what we enjoy,” explained Bok captain Siya Kolisi.

“Not that we haven’t enjoyed how we have been playing before, but if you look at the guys in our team that’s where we want to go to.

“We love defending and I think we defend well as a group. But we have guys like Cheslin (Kolbe), Kurt-Lee (Arendse) and Willie (le Roux) at the back who create opportunities for players, and Gazza (Damian Willemse) at flyhalf who plays on instinct. That’s what the coaches are encouraging us to do.

Searching for perfection

Kolisi also admitted that the Boks were still searching for their perfect game plan and the only way to find it would be to try and play in as many different ways as possible, until they hit on the right game plan.

“We also want to try and play as many ways as we can as a group to see what the best way for us is. For us as a team we change our game plan within a week and I don’t think a lot of teams can do that around the world,” said Kolisi.

“We are doing it against the world number one and two and that’s something we obviously want to build on as a group.

“We obviously still have our strong kicking game that we know we can do very well, but also our attacking game is constantly improving.”