The Springboks have put themselves in a great position to reach yet another milestone in world rugby history. By beating the all-blacks this Saturday they become first team in about a decade to record back to back wins against the New Zealanders.
South Africa have momentum and confidence on their side, whilst the Kiwis have resilience, wet weather experience and a few game breakers who could easily upset the apple cart at the weekend.
The Springbok pack completely dominated in the first test – which put SA top of the log – lineouts, tackle ball and scrumming where all equaled if not bested by arguably the best tight five in the world at the moment and in Heinrich Brusouw they have the best openside fetcher on form in the world – a terrier of epic proportions and the find of the year. Add to this the enormous amount of caps amassed by John Smit's Boks over the past 6 years.
The backlines are where things start to become hazy. Both backlines possess amazing players capable of some of the best tries you'll ever see, but maybe because of the way the game has gone since it became professional, backlines (and wings) are seeing very little ball for large parts of the game. The only way to get better is to practice and without sufficient ball backlines will be rusty which accounted for the slue of handling errors we saw last week. 10 by the Boks and 9 by the all blacks is far too many for an international match on a dry and windless high veld evening.
Mornre Steyn will be eager, as he gets a start this week, to make up for his pitiful attapempt on Conrad Smith which lead to the no. 13 getting over for a try that never should have been. Steyn's kicking will take centre stage this Saturday as it looks likely to rain.
Nothing to lose and everything too gain for the Boks makes this one a humdinger. New Zealand have the lads and minerals to pull off an upset, so please folks I implore you: enjoy.
SGR
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