The Springbok Women returned to the training ground in Auckland on Tuesday, with a fresh gameplan and renewed energy for Sunday’s Pool C clash with Fiji.

The team returned from their Eden Park debut on Saturday where soft moments on defence contributed to a sobering 40-5 defeat by France but, according to scrumhalf Rumandi Potgieter, with no negative attitudes around the camp.

“Our mission is clear – we need to win, and we need to win with a bonus point by scoring four tries. So, we have a clear idea of what we need to do and how to get the perfect outcome,” she said.

“We do not want to go back [to SA) after our final pool game. We have just settled in, gotten used to the weather and experienced all the drama and emotions of being part of the Rugby World Cup. We certainly want more and as many opportunities as possible to showcase our team to the world.”

Potgieter said they were keen to work on the shortcomings exposed at Eden Park, but also add more variety to the positive outcomes of that match.

“We are really happy to be back on the training field, this is where we need to be right now,” said Potgieter.

“We spent most of Monday looking at what went wrong against France and realised that there were a lot of good things we did, apart from a couple of poor options on defence that were exploited by France, who showed why they are one of the top sides of the world.

“We needed this session today, to get going again. We have a plan to combat Fiji and we re-enforced our plans and attitude for Sunday,” she said.

They are expecting the unexpected from Fiji, who suffered an 84-19 defeat by England, when the two teams clash at Waitakare Stadium, with kick-off scheduled for 6:45am (SA time).

“They don’t play with much structure; they love to play the situation and what is in front of them. That makes them unpredictable and hard to analyse,” said Potgieter.

“We have not played them before and they have not played many Tests either, so there is not too much footage of them either. We will have to make sure we focus on our game, though, as that is what will bring the result.

“We need to impose our style on them, not the other way around. If we do that, we will be in a great position to claim the win.”

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