Playing four win-or-bust Tests against the All Blacks in a short space of time in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry (RGR) series will be similar to competing in the knockout phase of a World Cup tournament where there is no margin for error, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus says.
The old rivals will collide in the first of the back-to-back Tests in front of a sellout 62,000 crowd at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Saturday, where the Boks are determined to lay down a marker for the rest of the series (kickoff 5.10pm).
After the Ellis Park showdown, the sides square off in Cape Town for the second Test at the DHL Stadium (August 29), the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg (September 5), and a series finale at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore (September 12).
The Boks concluded two days of intense training on Saturday, where the objective was to get the entire squad aligned with an eye on the RGR series after a Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires last week.
The travelling squad, which included 26 players and a host of coaches, returned to SA in two groups on Monday night and Tuesday.
They spent most of the week having flush-out and gym sessions to get the players back into the local time zone and match-ready following the physical Test against Los Pumas, which the Boks won 17-10.
The squad returned to the training field on Friday and had another field session on Saturday before having the next day and a half off to spend time with their families before switching into full-blown Test week for their RGR series opener.
Bok hooker Johan Grobbelaar and utility forward Elrigh Louw were released to play for the Bulls in their RGR match against the All Blacks on Saturday evening, and rejoined the national squad on Sunday.
“It was important to manage the players who travelled to Argentina well and afford them sufficient time to recover from the match and switch back into the domestic time zone,” Erasmus said.
“That is why we only started training as a full group late in the week.
“But we are pleased that the players are well recovered and ready to give everything for the forthcoming Tests against the All Blacks.
“It will undoubtedly be a very challenging tournament, but we are looking forward to it as a collective.
“This series is almost like playing the knock-out stages of a Rugby World Cup because we are facing one of the world’s best week in and week out, and we all understand the magnitude of the RGR series.
“It’s a new and exciting challenge, and we have been putting in a lot of work behind the scenes, especially the group of coaches and players who remained behind in SA in the last two weeks.
“So we will fine-tune the areas of our game, which we would like to improve next week as we get ready to take the field.”
Erasmus has indicated a period of experimentation is likely to come to an end when the RGR series kicks off.
“When we get to the Greatest Rivalry, we’ll start steadying out on teams, on more or less the same kind of team, and not chop and change so much because it’s a new competition,” he said.
“We’re not happy that we played well against Argentina, but we’re very happy that we ground out a win.
“Even if we drew, we would have learned a lot about grinding out a win when the crowd is going crazy in Buenos Aires.
“It was an opportunity to play important matches with close results, like in the World Cup.”
- Follow The Herald WhatsApp channel today and stay connected to the stories shaping our world.
The Herald