Leighton Koopman
While the Springboks ended up with a convincing win over Scotland at the weekend, ahead of facing England on Saturday, they will look to improve on certain areas of their play where they were good, while addressing some errors they made in.
Here, Independent Newspapers looks at a handful of positives and negatives from the clash at Murrayfield.
Defence still key for Springbok domination
In a consecutive match against the Scots, the previous one at the 2023 World Cup, the Bok defence was outstanding, keeping them from crossing for a five-pointer.
Yes, one try was chalked off because of a knock-on, but it was good defending that forced the ball from the hands of Huw Jones in the build-up. And defending with 14 men, when winger Makazole Mapimpi was sent to the sin bin, underpinned the ferocity of the Springbok defensive system, They must do the same against England.
The attack keeps growing and growing
Even after making 11 changes, the Bok attack looked sharp at times and the little space-finding kicks of fullback Willie le Roux and flyhalf Handre Pollard delivered the desired results.
Le Roux popped up at first receiver brilliantly and pulled the strings at the back as the world champions kept finding space in the Scottish backline. Even with some of their chief attackers not playing, the Springboks continued evolving their attacking game plan which is taking shape excellently under Mzwandile Stick and Tony Brown.
More scrums, yes please
The Springbok pack laid a good marker in the scrums by absolutely dominating Scotland in this facet of play. While they would’ve loved more attacking scrums, the ones they had almost always yielded penalties and it was a great weapon towards the end.
Considering the Boks didn’t have all their scrummagers at their disposal, and some changes ahead of the England clash, the scrum can only get stronger. It was a brilliant platform from which they could launch attacks or kick points via the penalties.
Penalty pains and discipline
Although they will feel aggrieved by some of the calls made against them, especially at the breakdown, the Boks must limit the penalties they give away. The yellow cards this season also do not paint a good picture of the Springboks’ discipline.
Mapimpi was sent off for a cynical offside when the Scots were on the attack on their try line, while the 15 points off the kicking tee show the high penalty count within points distance South Africa gave away. A team like England will exploit those penalties better than what Scotland did.
Line-out misses
You could see line-out callers Franco Mostert and RG Snyman were out for most of this year’s Tests with hookers Bongi Mbonambi and Malcolm Max not finding their jumpers a couple of times in the line-outs.
The Boks lost a fair few line-outs in good, attacking positions and there wasn’t really any platform to set up their rolling maul from. But it is something that can be fixed ahead of facing England and when the Springboks hit the training field today, correcting what went wrong in the line-out will likely be a top priority ahead of the Twickenham fixture.
