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Jacques Nienaber expects Springboks’ semi to come down to ‘small margins’
By Finn Morton
With the quarter-finals having come and gone at the Rugby World Cup, the focus has already begun to shift to next week. Following on from South Africa’s thrilling win over France, head coach Jacques Nienaber was asked about their semi-final opponents England.
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England were written off by many coming into this World Cup, but Steve Borthwick’s men have overcome each and every obstacle so far on the sport’s biggest stage.
Led by fly-half George Ford, a 14-man England outfit blitzed Argentina in Marseille to open their campaign. England went on to finish pool play with four wins from as many games which saw them book a spot in the knockouts against Fiji.
It was close, tense and everything that quarter-final rugby should be. The Test was all square with 10 minutes to play but England pulled away to win 30-24 in Marseille.
Nienaber was following the England game ahead of the Springboks’ own date with destiny against tournament hosts Frace in Paris. The England game, just like their own and the All Blacks’ win last night, came down to “small margins.”
“Massive. I think it’s going to be a nice challenge,” Nienaber said when asked about England.
“In knockouts anything can happen, like tonight I followed the England game when we were on the bus here. Also they (England) had a healthy lead and then Fiji came back and then they also pushed it right to the end.
“I think knockouts are going to be small margins right to the end.”
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Playing in an all-time classic Rugby World Cup quarter-final on Sunday evening, the Springboks came from behind to knock the tournament hosts earlier than many expected.
Lock Eben Etzebeth scored a crucial try with just over 10 minutes to play which saw the Boks take the lead, and the defending World Cup winners showed their class to hold on in the dying stages.
South Africa burst into a frenzy as referee Ben O’Keeffe blew his whistle for full-time as the Springboks emerged victorious by the barest of margins, winning 29-28.
“Credit to the French first of all. We knew it was going to be this tight. I think everybody knew it was going to be a big battle,” Nienaber mentioned. “Two good teams and unfortunately, or fortunately for us, we were on the right side of things.
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“There was one point that separated it. I think the margins were marginal but no, credit to our players, they stuck in it to the end.”
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The weather was dreadful but the playing surface was great so there is no real excuse for such another poor standard of play from both sides. Dragons just the better team. But, what a shocking decision by the TMO not to award the Fifita try. This pretty much sums up Welsh rugby with poor teams and poor officials. The WRU have a lot of work to do and it needs to be done quickly to avoid rugby being lost to our future generations.
Go to commentsNo chance of Borthwick selecting any young talent. He announced his selection policy from the outset with naming a poor OF as Captain, retaining an equally poor Youngs and Vunipola brothers when there were many better EQP in the Premiership. SB revival of Leicester was based on SA muscle and a terrific Welsh flanker he has generally ignored young English talent.
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