Wales preparing for ‘hostile’ home crowds on SA tour

Wales are gearing up for a massive challenge in front of partisan crowds in their three-match Test series against the Springboks starting in Pretoria at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

The Welsh head into the series off a difficult Six Nations campaign and will need to be much improved if they are to make it a competitive series against the world champions.

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“It is a big challenge. Something myself and the team are really looking forward to,” said Welsh hooker Ryan Elias.

“Obviously we have just come off the back of the Six Nations and the autumn internationals (in November and December) where we had a lot of home games and it was great to have the Welsh support.

“But we are now coming down here in their (Springboks) backyard. I imagine it is going to be pretty hostile. It’s a sell-out crowd and that is really exciting and a huge challenge.”

Forward struggles

Elias is also keenly aware of the difficulties that their forward pack is set to face against the Boks, after they were put through the wringer in November, and believes they will have to match them if they don’t want a repeat this time around.

“I think Wayne (Pivac, Wales head coach) alluded to it last week. They are one of the best packs in the world. Big men, technically very good at scrum time and their lineout is very good. They get around the park and they are physical,” said Elias.

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“It is another big challenge for us as forwards. We have to match up with the intensity and physicality, otherwise it is going to be a long day for us,” he added.

“The respect is there because they are a very good scrummaging outfit, but at the same time we can’t give them too much respect. We want to be competitive and we want to take it too them as well.

“Our focus has mostly been on getting our process right and what we want to implement on to them, and hopefully if we do that to the best of our ability we should be alright.”

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Wales also have the challenge of altitude on the Highveld, which is always a disadvantage for visiting teams, and they will have to try and deal with it as best they can on the day.

“We arrived on Friday, had a bit of a lower level trot on Saturday just to get the legs moving,” Elias said.

“We have ramped it (training) up a bit more this week – you can definitely feel it on the lungs – so it is just a case of trying to adapt to it as fast as we can.”