Preview Boks VS Australia in Wellington

Eight years ago, Jake White told a brand new (and disbelieving) Springbok squad that they would win the World Cup four years later. Against the odds, they did, but has that same team got a second World Cup title in them under Peter de Villiers?

The answer will be clearer on Sunday when John Smit’s team step up to the quarter-final plate for the first of three knock-out games they must win if they are to defend their title. Australia are ranked third in the world, South Africa second, and if the Boks get past the Wallabies they run into the No 1 side on the IRB ranking, New Zealand in the semi-finals (they surely will beat Argentina in the fourth quarter-final). There could not be a tougher road to the final.

But right now the only possible focus there can be for the Boks is squeezing past a Wallabies team that has given them immense difficulties in recent years and won five out of the last six encounters.

The word squeezing is wholly appropriate because that is precisely what the hulking Boks are going to try and do to the fleet-footed, youthful Aussies.

There could not be two more contrasting styles in rugby – the cavalier Wallabies with the devil-may-care Quade Cooper calling the shots versus the power game of the South Africans that Smit once described as akin to a python coiled around its prey and slowly but surely expunging the life from it.

It is a strategy based on forward confrontation and domination and the problem for the Boks is that if the opposition gain parity or more, there is not much of a Plan B. But if the Wallabies forwards do not take a step back it means unleashing the world’s best backline, and as good as the Boks’ defence has been under Jacques Nienaber this year, you cannot indeterminately keep out hotsteppers such as Cooper, Will Genia, James O’Connor, Digby Ioane, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Kurtley Beale.

This morning assistant coach Gary Gold acknowledged as much when he said at a press conference: “We have to play to our strengths and be accurate and ruthless in the process. The Australians are a very young and athletic side with forwards that can keep pace with the backs, and if you give them an inch they will move you around the park until they find a defensive weakness.”

What makes this match-up so fascinating is that despite the opponents being chalk and cheese (or because of it), it is being spoken of here in New Zealand as the pick of the quarter-finals because nobody can with any conviction choose a winner. Even the bookies are offering even money on both teams, and because they remove sentiment from their predictions, they almost always get it right.

The Boks, meanwhile, are quietly contemplating the enormity of the occasion.

“The players are quite calm at the moment despite being very aware of the expectation back in South Africa, and then there is the expectation they have placed on themselves – they want to create history by being the first team to defend the Webb Ellis Cup,” Gold said.

However, Gold said that social responsibility was paramount to the players.

“Ever since we went into camp in Johannesburg two months ago we spoke about the responsibility that all of us have got to South Africa. We know the strength of the support back home, we were overwhelmed by our send-off in Sandton, and knowing what we can do for so many people is very important to us.

“We have been here six weeks and keep on hearing how important it is to New Zealand to win the World Cup for the first time in 24 years but it us equally important for us – we have seen how success in big sports events unites our country. The responsibility lies heavily on our shoulders but it is not a burden – it is something the guys accept as Springboks.”

Springboks: 15. Pat Lambie, 14. JP Pietersen, 1. Jaque Fourie, 12. Jean de Villiers, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Morné Steyn, 9. Fourie du Preez, 8. Pierre Spies, 7. Schalk Burger, 6. Heinrich Brüssow, 5. Victor Matfield, 4. Danie Rossouw, 3. Jannie du Plessis, 2. John Smit (c), 1. Gurthrö Steenkamp.

Substitutes: Bismarck du Plessis, CJ van der Linde, Willem Alberts, Francois Louw, Francois Hougaard, Butch James, Gio Aplon.

Australia – 15 Kurtley Beale, 14 James O’Connor, 13 Adam Ashley-Cooper, 12 Pat McCabe, 11 Digby Ioane, 10 Quade Cooper, 9 Will Genia, 8 Radike Samo, 7 David Pocock, 6 Rocky Elsom, 5 James Horwill, 4 Dan Vickerman, 3 Ben Robinson, 2 Stephen Moore, 1 Sekope Kepu.

Substitutes: Tatafu Polota Nau, James Slipper, Nathan Sharpe, Ben McCalman, Luke Burgess , Berrick Barnes, Anthony Fainga’a.

Referee: Bryce Lawrence (NZ)

Kick-off: 7am SA time

MIKE GREENAWAY IN WELLINGTON