The Springbok Women showed tremendous spirit to hold off Japan, but will face a new challenge in the shape of Australia in Saturday’s WXV 2 clash at the Athlone Stadium (5pm start).
The South Africans produced a masterclass in grit and determination on defence in the closing stages to beat Japan 31-24 at the Cape Town Stadium last Friday.
The Bok Women led 24-12 at one stage in the second half, but allowed the Japanese back into the game with two tries off the back of mauls by No 8 Seina Saito, and need to fix that area if they hope to topple another higher-ranked team, Australia, as part of their preparations for next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.
“Look, the ref had a very good game. But that’s one thing, the interpretation of the line-out maul ... In the men’s rugby that I’m used to, if you double-bank, it’s straight away (a penalty) – you can’t double-bank,” SA performance coach Swys de Bruin said about the mauls against Japan.
“And Sindi (Bok captain and lock Nolusindiso Booi), you can run twice or three times with the same query – so it’s a little thing that we’ve got to fix. But I can’t blame anyone ... we must fix it. And we must learn, if that happens, how to counter it.”
Do not mess with a South African scrum ❌#WXV | #WXV2 | #RSAvJPN pic.twitter.com/hbIYVI3LJ9
— WXV (@WXVRugby) September 27, 2024
He mentioned that assistant coach Franzel September shares his concern, noting that double-banking isn’t permissible in the game.
“Yet, in saying that, we were hit for truck-and-trailer four or five times, which I often thought was the same maul.
“So, that’s a department that we’ve got to sit down and look at. You get the instructions from them (the referees) and you coach accordingly, so if that happens, we’ve got to rectify it afterwards.”
He felt the referee had a good game, but some interpretation issues needed to be ironed out.
De Bruin was thrilled with how the Bok Women forwards got stuck in and dominated the scrums and showed real physicality to knock the Japanese out of the way at times.
Powerful No 8 Aseza Hele was again prominent with ball in hand, along with energetic lock Vainah Ubisi and barnstorming inside centre Chumisa Qawe, who all made good ground at close quarters.
Integral in an all-round team performance 🇿🇦
— WXV (@WXVRugby) September 27, 2024
Chumisa Qawe is the @Mastercard Player of the Match 🙌#WXV | #RSAvJPN | #POTM | #Priceless pic.twitter.com/LAZHFT4Z0b
The Boks, who scored five tries through Hele, Qawe, Sanelisiwe Charlie, Ayanda Malinga and Ubisi, will hope for more of the same against Australia, who beat Wales 37-5 at the weekend, in Saturday’s encounter.
“What happened a lot is that our style that we played them, with the pick- and-go’s and sucking them in, was awesome. We scored five tries, and two of those came from that,” De Bruin said.
“So, we maybe don’t have the profile that they have – the fast, quick (players) but we got the victory because we played to our strengths.
“They (Australia and Italy) are totally different. Watching Japan, Italy are totally different, who play almost like us – big and strong. Australia are Australia ... very good.”
Captain Booi added: “I would say (we are) playing for one another. It was a fast game, and we knew Japan was going to do that to us.
What a sidestep, what a run 😮💨
— WXV (@WXVRugby) September 27, 2024
South Africa kicked off their #WXV campaign in style 🔥
#WXV2 | #RSAvJPN pic.twitter.com/zx00UKEq0a
“So as a team, we made sure that we are playing as one and we are there for each other. Also, to give everything because there are more people coming out to watch us, and we are dedicating the game to them so that we can have more support.
“We have the saying that we must dominate our set pieces, so we did execute that and made sure that we win the scrums and get the penalties, and we kick it out close to the tryline so that we can maul them.”