The South Africa game against Namibia was became a little lost in the amazing game of Ireland v Japan. Having given a good account of themselves against the Azzurri, Namibia were looking to start strongly and try and learn from the game. A win against the Springboks seemed incredibly unlikely and so it prevailed.
Right from the start of the game, Namibia started poorly. A failure to exit their lines showed just how much of a struggle the game would be. Form a South African perspective it was a solid start and they set about asserting a physical dominance immediately. The scrum was where this started with Namibia being completely dominated.
However, Namibia were at points able to frustrate SA and prevent them from playing right through. Their scramble defence allowing Namibia to really fight on strongly stopping SA from scoring within the first 10 minutes.
SA resorted to their maul to finally break the Namibian defences exposing a key weakness that would garner a lot of points and momentum for the South Africans whose forwards set the tone for a dominant performance. Francois Louw scoring only 5 minutes after the first try. However at times, the SA backs also caused problems making breaks and keeping Namibia pinned back leading to a yellow card following a slap down deemed cynical by the ref.
For South Africa however there had been 6 errors against incredibly weak opposition. This therefore should be red flagged, with Rassie Erasmus having plenty of time before the ‘serious’ stuff begins. The handling errors led to an uncharacteristically low opportunities to points rating given the opposition. The rating of 19.1% sat them only 4% clear of Australia’s game against Fiji and perhaps crucially only 7% clear from the French in their game against Argentina. The low opportunities taken should definitely be a worry for Rassie Erasmus’ men.
South Africa did score with their backs and it is this I will attempt to examine below. The first try that came through the backs starts with a line out just in the Namibian half and started with a quick throw to Francois Louw who was not thrown in the air but instead merely received the pass expertly exposing Namibia switching off. This allowed fast ball for the South African’s who crashed the ball in with the first pod. This created a tight group of forwards close to the break down.
By isolating a winger and then targeting the edge of Namibia’s split defence South Africa are able to trap the Namibian forwards folding round. This coupled with a dominant carry from Frans Steyn sets South Africa perfectly central and enables them to attack from a solid base of possession.
Following this quick ruck, South Africa loop around the ruck. Another pod of 3 led by Number 8 Schalk Britz targets the same area again, with the third defender in from the touchline trying to make up for previous ‘weak’ defending and put in a big shot and slow down the South African attack. However. Brits is able to pop it off to Koch.
Koch’s angle means that the Namibians bunch together with no other defenders wider than those in frame. This means that when Jantijes gets the ball he can expose space on the outside of the Namibian defence. The Pod system also works to free the ball quickly from the ruck. Schalk Brits able to support his teammate and prevent any untoward pressure. Whilst the beast is also there to either offer an option or finish up and protect the ruck. From the ruck Jantjes fires it across the face of the Namibian defence allowing the Warwick Gelant to quickly accelerate onto the ball and beat the outside edge, a characteristic which has become key at RWC 2019. The skipping of South African hands also means that RG Snyman can run an inside supporting line preventing the Full Back from drifting even slightly onto the outside man.
This also has the added benefit of trapping the Namibian Jantjes and allowing SA easier play. This gives Mapoe an easy finish with no Namibian able to cover the back field and the first line of defence unable to realign fast enough with SA managing to break through the centre 2 times and cause them to be retreating rather than defending positively.
This perfect example of using pods shows just how clinical the Springboks can be. However we must still bear in mind the underwhelming nature of their attack. With 6 errors by the 32nd minute this was hardly an amazing performance. Given the nature of the loss to the All Blacks previously, which using adjustments to the rating system left them languishing as the second worst Tier One side above Scotland shows that the Springboks have got a lot to work on if they are wanting to be in the equation come the 2nd of November.
The Analysis Guy 