The Argentina try that will 'haunt' the Springboks

Jean De Villiers and fellow Rugby World Cup 2007 winner Schalk Burger have flagged Pablo Matera’s try in last weekend’s Rugby Championship defeat as the moment that encapsulated the Springboks’ current defensive frailties.

South Africa gave up an early 17-0 lead to trail 26-22 at the break in Santiago del Estero before losing 29-28. Second-row enforcer Matera scored the second of Los Pumas’ four tries in a devastating 20-minute period for the home side.

It was scored when South Africa were down to 14 men with winger Kurt-Lee Arendse having half of his 10 minutes in the sin-bin still to run.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus absolves replacement flyhalf Manie Libbok of the blame

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus absolves replacement flyhalf Manie Libbok of the blame

Dissecting the Springboks’ defensive performance in the latest episode of Boks Office, Burger and de Villiers feel that the Springboks could have dealt with the situation much better,

The pair highlighted a two-paced defensive system as one of the key reasons why the world champions aren’t quite on top of their game when without the ball.

“I think is one that will haunt us, the one where we took (flanker) Ben-Jason Dixon out of the scrum, so we had a seven-man scrum and Ben-Jason Dickson went to scrum half and Cobus Reinach went to the wing,” Burger said.

“There was a soft tackle in the first phase then they hit it up and came with that (Tomas Albornoz) sweep again, shoulder balls and a second-man play.

“Jesse (Kriel) sort of goes and pushes past (the ball), Handre (Pollard) then misses the ball out of the back and Cobus (Reinach) is in between the last two attackers, he hasn’t closed early enough.

“There are a lot of systems errors in that specific try, it doesn’t matter if we changed around the numbers.

“If we have it again I think we’ll target the scrum, be soft of first phase defence and then we are all in position. If they kick it through and they kick a 50:22 lineout, then so be it.”

Burger added: “Our defence isn’t quite what it was. And you can see there’s almost like two speeds to us now. it was quite easy for them to skin us with late sweeps and playing inside balls.

“In the past we had one speed, that’s just flat out, go and get them, it doesn’t matter how far back the ball is or how narrow we are.

“We are still quite narrow at times. But now it seems we go up and somewhere there is a call where we sort of pause and use the touchline as a safety net, get to  wide ruck and go and get them.”

Reinach’s failed attempt to stop Mateo Carreras in the build-up to the Matero try was one of 63 tackles missed by the Springboks in their last two matches, contributing to a sub-80% success rate in both.

However, de Villiers insists “it is fixable” and that the players just need time to get used to the methods of defence coach Jerry Flannery, who joined the set-up from English club Harlequins post-RWC 2023.

“We saw against New Zealand, maybe going back to the Ireland game, how we were beaten in the outside channels, and there were times when we saw it again this weekend.

“And second to that, again going back to the Ireland game, we were exposed around the ruck pillar, the second pillar kind of area. So those are the two areas on the field where we got exposed on the weekend, drastically.

“Add to that the missed tackles, the individual missed tackles, and that leads to four tries being conceded in 20 minutes.

“I think it is fixable, certainly from an individual tackling point of view but also in terms of the system. You could see there were times when we weren’t quite as in sync as we are used to in terms of our line speed defensively.

“Whereas cast your minds back to the World Cup final, I can remember that one time when New Zealand were a man up and Pieter-Steph (du Toit) was caught out on the left wing and they had numbers and he made the decision to smash Jordie Barrett. Opportunity lost.

“It’ll be interesting to see where the Boks go from here and whether they revert back to that.”

Still, with only nine tries conceded – six of them in the first half  – across the first five rounds, and only one point needed to guarantee the Springboks a second Rugby Championship title, de Villiers sees no reason to panic.

“Jerry Flannery is there now, so it is a different voice and he is working towards something and it will take time to eventually get there. So you need to understand that, and that is part of the evolution of the team.

“But looking at the context of that 20 minutes, that is obviously not the standard we are used to from the Boks.”