Preview: Italy vs Springboks
20 Nov 2009
Keo.co.za analyses the key match ups of Saturday’s Test in Udine and picks a winner.
If everything had gone to plan, the Boks would be heading to Udine with three wins from as many tour matches. In that event, coach Peter de Villiers would’ve had the luxury of resting his key players or alternatively giving the first-string another run before their all-important clash with Ireland.
Three defeats and a slew of injuries have denied De Villiers on both fronts. The first-choice pack won’t have the opportunity to build momentum before the Dublin fixture given the injuries to Schalk Burger and Bismarck du Plessis, as well as the resting of Victor Matfield. Nevertheless, the momentum of a result cannot be underestimated.
I picked the Boks to win the first three matches. Despite their lethargy, I felt the opposition just didn’t have what it took to upset the world champions, be it in their superstar guise or that of the dirt-trackers.
Both Leicester and Saracens fielded line-ups that excluded a number of first-choice players, and France, as brave as they were, were always going to be limited. The three tour defeats have been shock results, and there’s no escaping the fact. The Boks should be heading into the weekend three wins to the good, but instead, they’re under plenty of pressure to beat a second-tier union.
The big hype around this contest is at scrum time. Martin Castrogiovanni sent a powerful message in the first tour fixture at Welford Road as the Leicester scrum demolished their opponents. The Bok scrum struggled in Toulouse and were mauled at Wembley, and even though Wian du Preez is a better scrummager than Beast Mtawarira, the hosts will be favourites in Udine.
Italy will have taken heart from France’s fiery performance at the breakdown, and although they’ll go hell for leather in the opening 10 minutes this Saturday, they won’t maintain that intensity. If they do manage to lay any sort of platform, they don’t have the backline to translate those opportunities into points.
The Bok defence is used to withstanding Australian and New Zealand surges, so an Italian attack won’t present the same kind of problem. Heinrich Brussow will also be on hand to spark the counter-attack through a well-timed turnover, and in this respect we could see more running from the Boks on Saturday.
The tour scorecard, however, will prescribe a more conservative approach in the first half. Andries Bekker is the lineout go-to guy in Matfield’s absence, and should provide the Boks with a steady supply of possession be it South Africa or Italy’s feed. Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn will play for field position in the early stages as the South Africans build a lead. They need to build confidence before the game against Ireland, and so they need a big win. To achieve that, the majority of the damage needs to be done in the first 40 minutes.
Danie Rossouw lends the back row some grunt and will be used as the primary ball-carrier. It’s a shame Burger is unavailable for this match, as it would have afforded Rossouw a start in the second row which would in turn have handed Bakkies Botha some much needed rest. As it stands, Botha will be asked to dish out his unique brand of physicality against Italy, and a week later against Ireland.
The Azzuri have several individuals that need to be marked closely. No 8 and captain Sergio Parisse could be a handful off the back of a dominant scrum, and so the back tracking South Africans have to find a way to cut down his space, while the Bergamasco brothers can be dangerous.
The problem for Italy is that they don’t just lack gamebreakers, they lack solid Test players. While South Africa’s scrum is set for its biggest Test of the tour, the Boks should rule in other aspects. The Boks have never lost to Italy, and despite their recent showings on this disappointing tour, they should keep that proud record intact.
JC’s call: Boks by 10
Italy – 15 Luke McLean, 14 Matteo Pratichetti, 13 Alberto Sgarbi, 12 Gonzalo Garcia, 11 Mirco Bergamasco, 10 Craig Gower, 9 Simon Picone; 8 Sergio Parisse (c), 7 Alessandro Zanni, 6 Simone Favaro, 5 Quintin Geldenhuys, 4 Carlo Antonio Del Fava, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Fabio Ongaro, 1 Salvatore Perugini.
Subs: 16 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 17 Ignacio Rouyet, 18 Antonio Pavanello, 19 Josh Sole, 20 Mauro Bergamasco, 21 Tito Tebaldi, 22 Gonzalo Canale.
Springboks – 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Adi Jacobs, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Danie Rossouw, 6 Heinrich Brüssow, 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 John Smit (c), 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Wian du Preez.
Subs: 16 Beast Mtawarira , 17 BJ Botha, 18 Victor Matfield, 19 Jean Deysel, 20 Francois Hougaard, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Wynand Olivier.
458 Comments
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21 Nov 2009, 13:04 pm
#449 David: Hey I read my post again and I’m impressed with myself
That deserves a beer late… cheers all, good luck to whoever you support.
21 Nov 2009, 13:06 pm
while i agree that scrums and line-outs are important, you have to think back to suncorp in 2006 when we completely dominated the set piece but lost 49-0
21 Nov 2009, 13:13 pm
#450 goyougoodthing2: cheers boet….pub here i come…
outta here
21 Nov 2009, 13:16 pm
#452 semi: well thank the Gods we had 1 st phase supremacy….otherwise it could have been a 100 point drubbing!
21 Nov 2009, 14:19 pm
#418 grant10: I totally agree with you and will concede that what I wrote is a more simplistic view of the game. The point I was trying to make though is, that at the moment the only thing that people seems to talk about is our scrum, or our inabillity to scrum, but I feel that there are other, more important, things that need to be looked at.
Yes, I agree that our scrum should get fixed and fast, but I also feel that it is something that with proper selection and few tweaks here and there will be rectified easily. I even think that next year our scrum will be back to normal.
Yes, I will also agree with you that the scrum has an impact on the rest of the game and has an effect on the effectiveness of our players to hit the ruck and other contact areas.
The problem I do however see is that other teams are changing their minds on how to beat us. And, when they are successfull at it, we do not seem to have a plan B. Or, to put it in another way: If one or two key individuals are off their game and our game plan is isn’t working, we seem to lack the abillity to make changes on the field in order to change the momentum of the game. I tink that is a bigger problem than our scrum at the moment. I also think it will take longer to rectify than our scrum.
21 Nov 2009, 14:29 pm
After all that, let us hope the Boks trounce the Spaghetti
eaters, because a loss would pose serious problems in team
selections for Irish.
I am still at a loss to understand how after the BIL and
Tri-Nations and competitive Currie Cup the selectors and
coaching staff got it all so horrible long.
What i am seeing now does not in my opinion reflect
the strength of our domestic competition.
I am not a WP fan but I will go as far to say that they
would have beaten Leicester and Saracens.
21 Nov 2009, 15:18 pm
#431 WakaNathan:
That’s not ranking, that’s more of a log or league system, when teams play each other 3 times a year.
Ranking is basically a supposition, say I rank Argentina above England although the sides HAVEN’T met for more than 4 years, so how do I decide their reletive strenghts?!
Only by a ranking system
If the Boks beat the ABs 3 out of 3 times this year they cannot be ranked below the ABs, nevermind that the ABs lost to France at home while the Boks lost to France away.
To me it’s a sheer fabrication, nothing else
22 Nov 2009, 19:51 pm
#457 Hondo:
If the Boks beat the ABs 3-0, but lose to opposition that the ABs beat – Australia and France-in-France, then YES they most certainly can rank below the ABs.
and will.
But if France beat ABs having beaten Boks as well, then they deserve to be no1 even tho their ranking may be as low as 4 or 5.
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