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Springboks add six as Koch and co return to French, English clubs

(Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Jacques Nienaber has confirmed that six players have been called up to his South Africa squad ahead as next Saturday’s clash with England falls out of the international Test window governing player release. The French-based quartet of Vincent Koch, Trevor Nyakane, Cobus Reinach and Cheslin Kolbe along with the English-based pair Jasper Wiese and Andre Esterhuizen have all returned to their clubs following Saturday’s Springboks win over Italy.

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In their place, the Springboks have brought in five players who were part of the South Africa A team that lost recent matches at Munster and Bristol and another, Canan Moodie, who has recovered from injury.

A statement read: “Springboks coach Jacques Nienaber called up six players to his squad for Saturday’s final tour Test against England, as a few players left camp to join up with their French and UK clubs following the match against Italy in Genoa.

“South Africa A team captain Thomas du Toit, Ntuthuko Mchunu (both props), Marco van Staden (flanker), Johan Goosen (fly-half) and Grant Williams (scrum-half) will all join the Springboks, while Vodacom Bulls wing Canan Moodie has recovered from the hamstring injury that ruled him out of the tour and will also join up with the team in London.

“Vincent Koch, Trevor Nyakane, Jasper Wiese, Cobus Reinach, Cheslin Kolbe and Andre Esterhuizen have all returned to their clubs as Saturday’s Springboks clash falls out of the international Test window.”

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Nienaber explained: “The players who will join us from the SA A team all put up their hands in the midweek games and we are delighted to have them in the mix this week, while Canan has shown what he can do at Test level and I am sure he will be delighted to be back in the squad. Some of the players were with us on tour until after the Ireland Test and it was always the plan to recall them at the conclusion of the SA A matches.

“As we said from the outset we wanted as many players as possible to get game time on this tour as we look ahead to the Rugby World Cup next year and we believe the players and the team will benefit from this in the next few months.”

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Regarding the prospect of facing England, Nienaber added: “We know it is going to be a tough challenge and as coaches, we have already started turning our attention to that match. There are a lot of positives we can take from the Tests against Italy, France and Ireland, but England will pose a completely different challenge and we need to be ready for that.

“We really want to build momentum and finish the tour on a positive note, so we will work as hard as we can this week to achieve that.”

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Flankly 0 minute ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 10 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
N
Nickers 39 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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