By Gavin Rich.
There is always a battle of wits when the Springbok brains trust comes up against Eddie Jones, but until now the England coach probably hasn’t seen it like that.
Generally, he is less talkative before his team faces South Africa, as after working with Jake White in the management of the 2007 World Cup-winning team, he knows where the Boks get much of their motivation from. But he made no secret on the eve of the 2016 battle between the teams, when the Boks were clearly struggling towards the end of the first year of Allister Coetzee’s reign as coach, that he thought the opposition were all about brawn.
Jones, who is known to hardly ever sleep due to his job being so much on his mind, would probably have seen the Bok/France game in Marseille a week ago, and by now he’s probably gone through their destruction of Italy in Genoa this past weekend with a fine tooth comb.
What he saw might just have caused him to raise one wizened eyebrow in surprise. Talk to any overseas coach off the record and there is always one thing that comes up: The Boks would be unbeatable if they added more to their game.
That the South Africans don’t tend to do that has become a standing joke among overseas rugby people, with England lock Maro Itoje making that joke publicly not long after his team’s 25-25 draw with the All Blacks at the weekend.”South Africa have’t changed the way they play since their first game in international rugby. Strong set-piece, strong kicking game, strong defence,” he chided.
Itoje’s right if he expects those ingredients to still be present. But on the evidence of the last two games, the Boks are also more ready to burn you out wide than they appeared to be in the past, they’re more ready to run the ball back than kick it back, they are more inclined than they were to pass rather than kick, they are seeing space to run at rather than kick at. And they appear to be playing with greater tempo.
Whether they will do what they did against France and Italy against England remains to be seen, as it is the Bok scrum and maul that England most fear, and rightly so if you remember back to 2 November 2019 in Yokohama. The two teams have only met once since that Rugby World Cup final.
WHICH ENGLAND WILL SHOW UP?
It is not just England who should be guessing though, it should also be the Boks that should be guessing ahead of this tour-defining final fixture of 2022.
Which England will they be playing against? The conservative team that lost to Argentina and bumbled through the first hour of their clash with the All Blacks or the all-embracing attack-orientated England that scored 19 points in just a matter of minutes to come back from certain defeat to draw the game?
As Bok assistant coach Deon Davids points out, the Boks are used to guessing when it comes to games against teams coached by Jones, for they have a high regard for his astuteness.
“Eddie is a very good coach, his record of producing shock results confirms that and he always has a few aces close to his chest,” said Davids in an online media conference from London.
“It won’t be any different this week and we have to be spot on in how we execute our plans while being quick to react to what they produce. We are preparing for a very tough encounter, but we will also have something up our sleeve and you will have to wait and see what we come up with.”
Yup, there is an unknown factor from both teams that makes this clash extra interesting, and what also makes it interesting is the prospect of England having learned from the mistakes they made against New Zealand. Davids thought their comeback against the Kiwis was mind-boggling.
“It was a phenomenal comeback, and it underlines how close the big teams are and how if one goes off the boil, the other can come right back. The New Zealand have always been masters of the comeback and this time they got a taste of their own medicine,” said the Bok forwards coach.
“The lesson is that it is never over until the last whistle at this level. Both teams will fight right until the end and you can never ever switch off. You have to stay focused.”