Yesterday South Africa played Australia in their opening game of the Rugby Championship and not surprisingly lost. The SA team were their own weakness yesterday as they run into a 22 nil lead within the first 20 minutes. Having started so quickly running into a 4 score advantage the game should have been done and dusted and the players fell into that belief. The SA team dominated the first 20 minutes so much they were one try away from a 4 try bonus point.
Funny how games play out as SA never looked like scoring again and they did not, even though they had a few chances to do so, but failed to finish off the move. Australia on the other hand stayed in the fight and created chances even though they were against the run of play. The covering defense was non existent with the focus on attack and not about the what if moments. Against Italy and Georgia they have never had to worry about any what if's and this is why they were not ready for this match.
What was clearly evident the longer the game went on was Australia were becoming more of a threat and the SA team was under cooked and not mentally or physically prepared. This has always been a worry leading up to a tournament when teams play weaker teams and have not been tested.
The Aussies had the same problem a month ago when they faced the British and Irish Lions only having played Fiji as their preparation match. SA had played Italy twice and Georgia in there lead up games and would have been advised to have added an internal extra game between another make shift SA team even if it was behind closed doors. The intensity is not the same when you play weaker teams. Team preparation is more important than you would think and both the Aussies and South Africa have fallen into the same trap.
One could argue the Aussies are not a top 5 team so the SA management took a chance and found out they had underestimated their opponents. Everything was looking good for the first 20 minutes and then the wheels came off conceding 38 unanswered points in the next 60 minutes.
4 of the Aussie tries came from poor judgment and errors and these were self inflicted. I do not mind the loss as this is a wake up call and you learn more from a loss than a win. Next week when the two teams play again things will be very different and there will be a higher focus and hunger shown. There will be a different approach and a more serious type of intensity.
Every top team in the world needs a loss every now and then to shake things up as staying at the top is not that easy. If the SA team had won like they should have yesterday then this would have happened within the next few games and they have got this out of the way now. I would not like to be Australia next week as there will be a much changed different team waiting to show this was a once off. Expect to see a higher scoring game with SA running away with this after building a comfortable lead.
The SA coach likes to reshuffle his team around showing he has the resources at hand which he does but there is a time and place to do this. This week I expect at least 6 or 7 changes and a return to the bomb squad which is having 6 or 7 forward replacements coming off the bench all at once. yesterday we saw 2 come off the bench and then another 3 later on and this is not how this bomb squad concept works. Having an entire new forward pack fresh to replace the tired players is how and what impacts the last 20 minutes of any match. Having players that are of the same quality replacing those going off is a game changer that is almost impossible to fight against.