Johannesburg — Springbok head coach Jacques Nienaber has a good idea who will be facing Australia, and who will be travelling to the Land of the Long white Cloud when the Rugby Championship kicks off in early July.
Last week, the Springboks confirmed that they would be splitting their squad into two – one to play at Loftus Versfeld on July 8 against the Wallabies in the opening match of the Championship, and another to travel to New Zealand and face the All Blacks in the second fixture a week later.
Speaking from the Springboks’ base in Pretoria on Tuesday, Nienaber explained that the selections are sitting comfortable within the think-tank’s heads as they continue their preparations for the tournament and the Rugby World Cup later in the year.
“We’ve got a pretty good idea,” Nienaber said, “but there are still a lot of things that need to happen, like last week with Handre and with Damian Willemse struggling with injuries.
“There will still be issues like that. We have an idea of what we would like to do but it is still too early for us to say, ‘listen, it is going to be these guys.
“We do team selection almost every day and know if we had to go now, who would we take. In our minds, we are pretty much aligned.”
“It will not be an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ side,” Nienaber added.
“It will be similar to what we did in 2019. If you look at the team that played against Australia then, who started that game, I think a lot of people at the time thought that it would be an A and a B side.
“Beast (Mtawarira) started against Australia, and he started in the World Cup final. Bongi (Mbonambi) started against Australia, and he started in the World Cup final. Lood (de Jager) and Eben (Etzebeth) started, Pieter-Steph (du Toit) started.
“We will probably do the same. It will be a side that we believe will be good enough to beat Australia here at Loftus.”
The Australian team that will come to SA for the clash, will also be much-changed due to the approach of newly appointed but returning mentor Eddie Jones at their helm. That is arguably the biggest unknown regarding the match.
Said Nienaber: “With Australia, there are a lot of changes there.
“That will be one of the games where we focus internally on us and what we do. It is going to be quite difficult for us to say, ‘listen, is Australia going to have a Dave Rennie flavour, or an Eddie Jones flavour’.”