Nick Mallett has predicted a “very, very tough” game for the Springboks in Buenos Aires after the escape act against Los Pumas at Ellis Park.
The Springboks needed a relentless defensive effort and a breakaway self-converted try from Manie Libbok to scrape a one-point win over Argentina in the Rugby Championship finale.
Los Pumas will on Saturday host the Boks at the 50,000-seater Estadio Velez Sarsfield in the final game before Jacques Nienaber names South Africa’s finalised 33-player World Cup squad.
Former Springbok coach Mallett pointed out discipline and the lineout as two particular areas of concern as he predicts a passionate response from Argentina in Buenos Aires.
“This will be a lesson for the Boks, who now have to go and play them over there and it’s going to be a very, very tough game,” Mallett was quoted by TimesLive.
“Argentina were very good and the Boks will have to really step up.
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“I’d really like to congratulate Argentina on their performance. Because in the areas we thought we were going to be good they matched us.
“In the scrum, they managed to compete against us. In the line-outs they certainly got parity.
“In tackling they managed to double-hit us all the time and we did not get much momentum. Argentina’s ball-in-hand play was better than ours.
“South Africa’s discipline was very poor and we were giving penalties away on their line-out throws. I think we had three where we interfered with the jumpers and there were others around the breakdown.
“But worst of all, when we had line-outs ourselves we were unable to get any movement from them. The delivery was poor and we often did not get it through three or four phases, and we never managed to put pressure on them in the second half.
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“If we look at that second half, which by itself was Argentina’s, they dominated completely for probably 30 of those 40 minutes.
“It was the long-range try [that made a difference] where we managed to get an interception try where Faf de Klerk did very well by picking up the ball and played Manie Libbok.
“But Argentina still came back and scored a few tries at the end and if had not been for Manie’s kick they could have sneaked a win.”
Nienaber will name the team for Saturday’s match on Tuesday afternoon.
Photo: WIKUS DE WET / AFP
