Springboks back in training ahead of Rugby Championship: Three focus points
Springbok flyhalf Handré Pollard will likely play in every match until his younger counterparts nail their goal-kicking. Picture: Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images
After an encouraging, if not perfect, first four matches of the season, the Springboks will be getting down to business in their training camp ahead of the all-important Rugby Championship.
Thirty-seven Springboks were included in the squad for the two-week camp in Johannesburg that started on Sunday. These will be eligible for the two Tests against Australia at Ellis Park on 16 August and in Cape Town on 23 August.
Three U20 players, fresh from winning the World Rugby U20 Championship, are also attending the camp.
It follows Bok wins against the Barbarians (54–7), Italy (42–24 and 45–0) and Georgia (55–10). These served as good warm-ups for the championship defence. But the Springboks will be focusing on a few areas of their game.
Breakdown battle
The Springboks recovered from the demolition they received in the breakdown battle in the first Test against Italy, but it was a whole new squad that evened things out against the 10th-ranked nation in the second Test in Gqeberha.
The more experienced matchday 23 were at odds during the breakdown at Loftus. Though, to be fair, the Springboks were caught out somewhat by the referee's decision to allow Italy to flood the breakdown with players.
Still, the team filled with World Cup winners could not adapt to Italy's strategy. They may need to relook at this.
Who's kicking for posts?
The Springboks were happy to kick for touch in the warm-up games, with their lineout and forward packs proving dominant. But it will not be so easy against the likes of New Zealand, Argentina and Australia. The Boks may need to take the three points on offer when they can.
Manie Libbok and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu finished the United Rugby Championship with 72.6% and 85.7% kicking success. However, the latter struggled against Georgia, only slotting one from five.
Libbok, normally the less dependable goal-kicker, nailed five out of seven the week before.
Still, Handré Pollard grasped his opportunities with both hands, once again proving the best post-kicker in the Springbok squad. He will likely either start or play from the bench in every match, but the other two will especially need to practice their goal-kicking.
Imparting something to the U20 world champions
While it won't be a focus point so much as a secondary objective, U20 loose forward Bathobele Hlekani, winger Cheswill Jooste, and scrumhalf Haashim Pead will need to soak up as much as they can on the camp.
Already world champions with big-match temperament, Erasmus will likely only wish the youngsters to rub shoulders with their seniors to absorb some of the Springbok culture, and improve on their own game.
According to former Junior Bok consultant Johan Ackermann, Hlekani especially needs to tighten his tackling.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The South African
a minute ago
- The South African
Rumours swirl over date, venue for FIFA World Cup 2026 draw
Las Vegas will play host to the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw on 5 December 2025, according to multiple reports on Tuesday. ESPN and TUDN'Mexico said Vegas had been picked for the draw of the expanded 48-team event, which will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. In all, 12 groups of four nations will be drawn. When the United States played host to the 1994 World Cup, the draw ceremony was also conducted in Las Vegas. ESPN's original report said that The Sphere, a 17,500-seat venue which opened in 2023, was seen as the front-runner for the draw site. But Sphere sources confirmed to AFP the World Cup draw would not take place there, and ESPN later reported Sphere sources told the sports network it would not be held there. In 1994, the draw was staged in Las Vegas even though it was not a host city for any matches, a situation that is also the case for next year's event. Bafana Bafana, the South African national team, is edging closer to qualifying for only their fourth World Cup ever, provided they win their next two games. If Bafana beat Lesotho and Nigeria in September 2025, the national team will book their place with two games to spare – against Zimbabwe and Rwanda. Let us know by leaving a comment below or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and Bluesky for the latest news. © Agence France-Presse
The Citizen
31 minutes ago
- The Citizen
Currie Cup 2025: Round 2 fixtures
The 2025 edition of the Currie Cup got under way last weekend with the Bulls, Lions, Pumas and Boland all recording important first-up wins. With the competition being played over just one round – that is seven matches each, home or away – there is little room for slipping up. The Pumas, winners of the competition in 2022, started with a bang, with a 49-28 win against Griquas in Mbombela, while the Bulls registered an excellent away win in Cape Town, when they downed Western Province 48-23. The Lions also impressed with a big 46-5 win against the travelling Sharks, while newcomers this season, Boland, edged the Cheetahs in a nail-biting close affair, 37-35. Weekend round two fixtures There are likely to be a few more close encounters this weekend. On Friday at 19:00, the Cheetahs host the Pumas in Bloemfontein, and they'll be desperate to pick up a first win after their slip up in Wellington last Sunday. On Saturday at 15:00, the Lions host Western Province in what should be an exciting game if the men from the Cape can produce a better performance than they did at home last weekend, while the Bulls at home in Pretoria (Saturday 17:10) should be the favourites against the Sharks, who struggled in Joburg last weekend. In the final game of the second round, Griquas welcome Boland to Kimberley on Sunday at 15:00, also in need of a 'bounceback' after stumbling in Mbombela. While the teams are all backing their youngsters over the coming weeks, with the 'seniors' resting after the United Rugby Championship, the good news is the coaches will from this week also include some of the World Rugby U20 Championship-winning Junior Boks players in their teams. This article first appeared in The Citizen. Breaking news at your fingertips… Follow Caxton Network News on Facebook and join our WhatsApp channel. Nuus wat saakmaak. Volg Caxton Netwerk-nuus op Facebook en sluit aan by ons WhatsApp-kanaal.
IOL News
an hour ago
- IOL News
What tough choices await Rassie Erasmus, Springboks before the 2027 Rugby World Cup?
Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus is trying to juggle the old and the new ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia. Image: Backpagepix Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus knows he is heading towards a point in the journey to the 2027 Rugby World Cup where he will have to make some big calls as far as some of his senior stars are concerned. It's been clear since the end of the triumphant 2023 Rugby World Cup in France that some of the players who won back-to-back Webb-Ellis trophies with Erasmus may not make it to Australia in two years' time. Some of the stalwarts of the South African game are close to the rugby twilight. Over the last 18 months Erasmus has had bloated Bok squads and has handed almost 20 players their debuts during that time. This year, for the home Tests against Italy and Georgia, the Boks operated with a squad of almost 50 players, with different players getting a taste of Test rugby. There has also been heavy rotation, with many of the senior players hardly playing full games. All of this is designed to manage workloads, but also expose more rookies to build capacity when those big decisions need to be made. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Erasmus says he is enjoying the talk and speculation around his squad's age ahead of the 2025 rugby showpiece event. It tells him people are still interested in the Boks winning doing an unprecedented 'three-peat'. However, he admits that he isn't '100 percent sure' how they are actually going to decide who makes the trip and who won't be traveling Down Under in two years' time. 'It hasn't actually happened before in South African rugby that people and the media talk about the squad's age ahead of a World Cup. And that's something that is good, because it shows that people are interested,' Erasmus told the media this week during their Rugby Championship camp. 'But for us, it's about performance, trying to calculate which guys will be there in 2027. That's why we had a camp of 45. 'Of course, we're not 100 percent sure yet. Some guys, we feel iffy. Some guys can definitely make it. Other guys are just freaks who can play like Johnny Sexton until they're 38, but you don't get a lot of those. '(For the youngsters), it's about making sure that you get some Test caps into guys, some experience of them understanding our coaching staff, understanding how our environment works, getting into hopefully most of the guys 10 plus Test caps before we go to that Rugby World Cup. At the start of the season, when the Boks got together for the first time, they went through vigorous fitness testing, which players such as Cheslin Kolbe described as the toughest thing they have ever experienced in a Bok camp. Erasmus explained that this was designed to check where the players are at in terms of their fitness and performance levels. But it's clever that it's also a marker about where they need to be physically to continue playing for the Boks when competing with the youngsters. Erasmus, however, knows this core group of senior players inside out and will always give them the best chance to prove themselves worthy of another World Cup hunt. 'Obviously we just don't want to filter an experienced player out just because he's not going to play in 2027,' Erasmus said. 'You know, it will be very unfair on a senior player or older player, or more experienced player, because his Test match career can last until November 2026 and then he's done. Players don't plan their rugby lives around World Cups. They plan their rugby lives around their age and how well they can play. 'So if they are still the top one to three in their positions up until 2026, we'll probably play those guys. 'We are making plans like we have now, having bigger groups and making sure the younger guys coming through are quite comfortable and up to speed and confident playing the Springbok jersey. So I think we're okay.'
