When your opposition is fighting to stay in the top eight ranked teams in the world and hasn’t scored a home try in over a year, then there is no question that a champion team like the Springboks should win.So the Boks will go to Murrayfield on Saturday to face Scotland with the margin of victory the only real question mark. The question of what strategy they employ is only relevant in so-far as it has an impact on the manner in which they go about notching up the win and in what it will do to their chances of completing a clean sweep at Twickenham the following week.
The Scots are low in confidence, and it says a lot about the gap between these two sides that Bok coach Peter de Villiers should spend the early part of the week talking up the Scots on the basis that “they took the All Blacks close”.
The late withdrawal on Thursday of Fourie du Preez does introduce a new doubt to the scenario. Du Preez played a big role last week in settling Ruan Pienaar and taking pressure off him in his tactical kicking role. Ricky Januarie is a great scrumhalf who brings different strengths, such as the ability to close up gaps on defence, but this might be a time when Du Preez’s influence might have been more useful.
It should not though impact on the Bok chances of winning this match, and while Jean de Villiers is right when he says that the Murrayfield surface is seldom firm enough to be conducive to an all-out attacking game, the weather forecasts are showing hints of mildness (15 degrees for Aberdeen on Saturday) mixed in with all the rain squalls.
Kick-off on Saturday at 16h30
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