Africa-Press – South-Africa. In Paris
Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber is comfortable with the risk that came with picking a seven-one bench split for Saturday’s crunch Pool B encounter against Ireland at Saint-Denis’ Stade de France.
Nienaber opted for seven forwards on the bench, with scrumhalf Cobus Reinach as the only back on the bench, while experienced players like Duane Vermeulen and Willie le Roux were left out of the match-day 23 altogether.
The Springboks had trialled the seven-one split against New Zealand at Twickenham on 25 August due to Le Roux’s injury to great success with a 35-7 win.
Reinach, who was the sole backline reserve in that game, was picked in the same position, with Kwagga Smith, a former Sevens player, being one of the forwards who can be deployed in the backline in the event he’s needed there.
However, a pre-World Cup friendly, regardless of the opposition, is different from a pressure-cooker World Cup game that will determine who qualifies first out of what is a difficult pool.
Nienaber didn’t want to delve into who will play where in the event of a substitution or injury, but said their versatility allows them to venture in that direction.
With Bongi Mbonambi starting at hooker, Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden were named on the bench as hooker cover.
“People will look at it and definitely think there’s risk involved,” Nienaber said.
“But, for us, it is calculated and there are guys who are in the seven-one split that cover various positions.
“It’s not something I will go into because of its tactical nature, but we have a lot of versatility in the squad, and we saw that in the past weekend with the four scrum-halves.
“We’re comfortable with the risk that we’ve taken.”
With Ireland packing a strong and resourceful forward group that soaked up pressure before overpowering Tonga in Nantes last week, Nienaber said this approach was the best one to secure a result on the weekend.
“The reason why we went for the seven-one split is that we believe that is the best way for us to get a result on the weekend,” Nienaber said.
“We always try to be as physical and intense, from where we always say we can’t always plan for a good start because it’s not always in our control.
“You may not always have the scoreboard, but you can always plan on an intense start, and we’ll always try to be intense.
“We would like to be intense in the same way they would like to be intense.”
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