Boks ready to step it up against Aussies — Kolisi

The Herald

7 days ago

After crushing Georgia 55-10, the Springboks are ready to move up another gear as they look ahead to their opening match in the Rugby Championship against Australia on August 16, skipper Siya Kolisi says.
After experimenting in their games against the Barbarians, Italy and Georgia, the Boks are set to name a more experienced squad to face the Wallabies at Ellis Park.
The 36-man squad will be named on Tuesday and is expected to include players suited to the way SA want to play in the Rugby Championship.
Kolisi said the Boks were not completely satisfied with their performance at the weekend despite running out comfortable winners in Mbombela after leading 22-10 at halftime.
'It was a tough game. Credit to the Georgians, they came hard in the first half,' he said.
'Physically, they matched us most of the time, and we struggled at the breakdown; they were quite dominant there.
'So we were happy with the way we cleaned up in the second half.
'The problem was we weren't able to produce enough positives one after the other.
'We did something good and then we would make a mistake, so that slowed down our momentum.
'The game was also a bit slow and was very stop-start.
'But hopefully we can fix our problems and make sure that we build on our positives going forward.'
The Boks fielded a new-look side against Georgia with props Boan Venter, Neethling Fouche and hooker Marnus van der Merwe all making their debuts.
'I am happy for the debutants and congratulations to them and their families,' Kolisi said.
'The coach is building squad depth while we are winning, and you can see the amount of competition in the group.
'The guys who played last week in Gqeberha set the standard.
'I think in the first half here we didn't live up to that standard and had to pick it up in the second half.'
Bok coach Rassie Erasmus said he was satisfied with the win but attributed a stop-start performance to having rotated the squad throughout the four-match series (including the clash against the Barbarians).
'We're fairly happy if you look over the four games,' he said.
'We scored close to 50 points in each match and apart from the first Italy Test, defended pretty well.
'Georgia were physical and disruptive but that's not an excuse for us making so many errors.
'But I guess we must understand that if we chop and change teams like we have as we're building squad depth, you'll lose rhythm.
'We found that again in the last 20 minutes and we can be fairly happy with the scoreline, though one can always do better.'
'We'll name 36 guys on Tuesday for the Australia series and within that squad there'll be one or two guys that we experiment with, but the bulk of that squad will be experienced players who are suited to the way we want to play,' he said.
'The nice thing is that we've got a group of 48 players or so that we've used this year and there are quite a couple that we'd also like to give opportunities to, like Jaden Hendrikse, Jordan Hendrikse, Quan Horn and Renzo du Plessis.
'But this was a series where we wanted to experiment a little bit, so getting the scorelines we did is pretty satisfying. But the Rugby Championship is a step up.'
Scorers:
SA 55: Tries: Boan Venter, Marnus van der Merwe (2), Canan Moodie, Edwill van der Merwe (2), Damian Willemse, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Handré Pollard. Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Handré Pollard (4).
Georgia 10: Try: Vano Karkadze. Conversion: Luka Matkava. Penalty: Matkava.
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