Boks face hard truths in review of first Test against Italy after misfiring second-half display

Daily Maverick

16 hours ago

The Springboks beat Italy 42-24 in the first Test at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, but their performance fell short of expectations.
It's a measure of the standards which the Springboks have set in the past seven years that an 18-point winning margin, while scoring six tries, is considered below par.
But that's exactly the case after the Springboks beat Italy 42-24 at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday. It's the price of being world champions and the unofficial standard-bearers of the sport.
It's a burden the Boks must carry because they are held to a higher standard after consecutive Rugby World Cup successes as well as many other achievements along the way.
Coach Rassie Erasmus, in the immediate aftermath of the match in Pretoria, struck a measured tone, although he let slip that the display simply wasn't good enough.
The overall performance was probably a little better than average, but a woeful second half took the gloss off what was a strong first half.
The Boks scored four tries and led by 28-3 at the break after they forced Italy to make 120 tackles and dominated territory and tempo.
Given how much defending Italy were forced to do in the opening stanza, the Boks would normally have landed several more hammer blows in the final quarter and won by a massive margin.
That wasn't the case thanks to Italy's magnificent resilience and the Springboks' tepid performance for most of the second half. The much-feted Bomb Squad failed to fire as individual and collective errors mounted in an atypically sloppy display.
Erasmus alluded to the stop-start nature of the game, especially in the second half, with several Azzurri players going down injured, which prevented the Boks from gaining momentum.
That might have been a mitigating factor, but quite frankly, the Springboks should be better than that. They went into the game with a collective 1,204 Test caps compared to Italy's 388. The South African side had more than enough experience to cope with whatever 'tricks' Italy might have employed.
When the Boks review the match they will have much to pick over because many seasoned players were below par.
Locks RG Snyman and Franco Mostert didn't meet their usual high standards when they were deployed. Ditto hooker Bongi Mbonambi. Singling out individuals is probably futile because there appeared to be collective apathy for much of the second half.
Italy defended well, made the breakdown messy and showed surprising energy and stamina after being pounded for 40 minutes, which is to their credit.
But the world champions let them build that head of steam, losing the physical battle. When last could you say that the Boks were outmuscled?
The sight of an Italian rolling maul rumbling 20m, leading to a try for replacement hooker Pablo Dimcheff will feature on Azzurri highlight reels for years to come.
Complacency?
It was a blow to South African egos, possibly exposing something frightening brewing in the Bok camp — complacency.
There is no other logical explanation for the display after the break. It looked and felt like this team assumed they only needed to go through the motions to keep the scoreboard rolling.
'I don't think our physicality and intensity was what it should be,' Erasmus acknowledged after the match.
'It was frustrating because we had a lekker week in the build-up to the match; we were into it, things went well, and it was nice and physical.
'Maybe we as coaches made some mistakes by thinking we were ready for the game. Maybe you need to drive the players even more when you start thinking everything is going well.
'It's not the players who are at fault. Maybe we as coaches didn't press the right buttons.'
That was as close as the great coach came to admitting complacency might be an issue.
Erasmus rightly also praised Italy. It mustn't be forgotten that they went into the match without a swathe of their Six Nations regulars, were rocked back in the first 40 minutes and yet never gave in.
'We must acknowledge Italy's performance too. They were gutsy, and after making 120 first-half tackles you'd think they'd give in [in the second half], but instead they turned up the heat,' said Erasmus.
'In the first 10 minutes of the second half it was stop/start, and we couldn't get intensity into the game, so with the Bomb Squad we wanted to get intensity and speed play up.
'Even with the bench, we couldn't do that, which was frustrating.'
The Boks conceded three second-half tries, something that has seldom happened since 2018. It's another indication that something was lacking.
'Italy were excellent at legally slowing our ruck ball down and holding us up in the tackle,' said Erasmus. 'I thought we attacked from slow ruck ball, and the tries they scored were from quick ruck ball.
'That's what was frustrating. They seemed to be able to switch on and off after a three-minute injury break better than we were, and conceding four tries was worrying.'
Honesty
The internal debrief is sure to be uncomfortable because, despite making all the right noises after the game, it's clear something was amiss with the Boks' mentality.
Rugby at the highest level is often decided by mentality and intensity over tactical nous. Italy had a better attitude in the second half.
It was obvious in the post-match musings that the Boks were critical of referee Hollie Davidson's handling of the breakdown and the staccato nature of the contest without saying as much.
Replacement flank Kwagga Smith echoed Erasmus' musings about stoppages and breakdown issues.
'They came hard at the breakdown, threw lots of bodies into rucks and disrupted us. We couldn't get momentum,' said Smith.
'Getting momentum back in a Test is difficult, especially when you can't get continuity, the breakdown is a mess and the ball spits out. It becomes difficult as you're playing scrappy rugby and literally just fixing mistakes all the time.
Erasmus reminded the media in the build-up to the clash at Loftus that when the Boks assess their performances in the post-match debrief, the final score is not the most important factor.
They look at much more detail, individually and collectively when picking over the bones of the match.
'We want to be the best team in the world, and to continue to do that we have to be honest,' said Smith.
'You know that when you don't play well or to the best of your ability, and win by 18 points, you still have to be honest with yourself because the final score is not the only measure.
'Honesty is one of the best things we have in our environment. We will be honest in the review.' DM