Springboks coach Jacques Nienaber looked for positives after failing to beat Argentina by a big enough margin to win the Rugby Championship.
Nienaber’s men were required to defeat Argentina by 39 points or more in the final round after New Zealand registered a 40-14 win over Australia, but the Springboks could only claim a 38-21 victory in Durban.
Used a big pool of players
The coach used a total of 34 players throughout the tournament to build depth. However, question marks remain over certain positions and whether better decision-making from selectors could have mitigated the impact of injury, particularly at fly-half.
Nienaber claims the Springboks are in a better position regarding squad depth but still commended Frans Steyn for his performance which was, in truth, sluggish and inaccurate.
“We built some squad depth. Some players got some experience but that wasn’t the main aim – which was to win the Rugby Championship and we fell short on that. But there were some positives to take out of it,” Nienaber said.
“We are in a better position now in terms of learning about certain positions than we were when we started. There was always this big issue around fly-half and whether Damian [Willemse] could play there and hats off to Frans [Steyn] today; in a very short space of time he had to slot in and he will just get better in terms of that.”
Solutions at right wing
Several players filled the right wing positions throughout the competition, with Bulls duo Kurt-Lee Arendse and teen Canan Moodie proving they have what it takes at Test level. This means the Springboks now have impressive depth at wing with superstar Cheslin Kolbe still to return from injury.
“We’ve also had Kurt-Lee [Arendse] and Canan [Moodie] come through and now Cheslin [Kolbe] has to perform if he wants to get back in – but we know he is quality, and we look forward to welcoming him back.”
The Springboks have some challenging fixtures in their end-of-year tour, and it will be a good gauge of where the world champions are heading into their World Cup defence next year in France.
“We’re not where we want to be yet,” said Nienaber. “We need consistency, and we’ll probably get a pretty good idea on our end-of-year tour. We play No 1 [Ireland] and No 2 [France] teams in the world and we have an SA A side, and it will be a challenging tour. But it will give us nice answers as to where we are.”
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