South Africa, well back in the 2023 World Cup with a victory against Scotland (18-3), will leave its executives to rest for its second match of the competition on Sunday (3:00 p.m.) in Bordeaux against Romania, team the weakest in group B.
“We paid a lot of attention this year to rotating our squad well and managing the playing time of our players,” Felix Jones, assistant coach in charge of defense for the Springboks, explained on Tuesday during a press briefing at their base camp at La Seyne-sur-Mer (Var).
The coach of the outgoing world champions, Jacques Nienaber, must announce his team composition at the end of the day on Wednesday to face Romania, defeated by Ireland (82-8) this weekend.
“We want to approach this match as we would any other match in the group,” said Jones, according to whom the South Africans will not necessarily look to do as well or better than the Irish in terms of points scored.
“Each team has its own way of playing, its own DNA, and likes to stick to it. We don’t want to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to the results of others. Even if it is true that the difference in points could be important in this group,” added the former Irish international full-back.
World Cup Group B, nicknamed the “group of death”, includes three of the top five nations in the world rankings, Ireland, South Africa and Scotland, as well as Tonga and Romania.
“The staff is making sure this week that we remain focused on our objective and that we do not take this match lightly,” declared former Lyon and Grenoble third row Deon Fourie, also capable of playing hooker. .
“All our attention is on Romania this week,” confirmed Perpignan’s future second row Marvin Orie. “We put all our energy and all our intensity into training to respect Romania in the way we prepare.”