Time is running out as Boks have plenty to resolve before World Cup

There are 55 days until the Springboks open their World Cup campaign against Scotland in Marseille.

That, hopes Jacques Nienaber and Rassie Erasmus, should be sufficient time to fix what is ailing the world champions. This year’s Rugby Championship was one part of a delicate balancing act the Bok brains trust sought to manage, with the World Cup in mind.

On the one side as Nienaber explained after the 35-20 defeat to the All Blacks in Auckland on Saturday was the Rugby Championship itself, which SA wanted to win, but, barring a miracle in Melbourne in two weeks' time, is probably beyond them.

Then there was the assessment of the playing group, which, as was the case in 2019, was split over the first two games. Nienaber understandably did not want to use the fact that 13 players flew out to New Zealand early to prepare as an excuse.

As in 2019, after having beaten Australia on the highveld, they headed to New Zealand and fell behind early, but came storming back with Herschell Jantjies’s last-minute try earning them a draw.

However on Saturday, the All Blacks, unlike in Wellington four years ago, made their initial dominance count properly on the scoreboard with two outstanding tries, giving them a 17-0 lead in the opening quarter.

The Springboks never recovered. Eight of the 13 players sent to New Zealand early, started and to Nienaber’s point they looked short of a gallop. Ian Foster, the All Blacks mentor, had chosen a different route, taking his entire squad to Mendoza the week before to continue with the planning process which had started in their training camps, and then making just five changes to the side that beat Argentina for Saturday’s clash. It worked.

Nienaber is trusting that the experimenting and rotating of the past two weeks will bear fruit in the long run. Speaking of having four more games before the World Cup, he explained how those matches will assist in creating the necessary confidence before the Boks’ title defence begins.

However it is worth remembering that SA’s results in the past year, against those teams they will face at the World Cup, have been poor.

The Boks have lost to Ireland, France and New Zealand, twice, and for all the trust Nienaber and Erasmus have engendered that sequence of results is concerning. Of course three of those matches were close and as Nienaber pointed out regarding the defeat at Ellis Park last year, had his side taken their chances, the outcome would have been different.

However while talk was of a trend developing with regards to slow starts — something Nienaber disputed — the more concerning tendency has been for the Boks to fail to make more of the opportunities they do create when their forwards have been dominant.

There was plenty of hoopla after the win against the Wallabies at Loftus — a result which now has a different context after Eddie Jones’s team lost in Sydney to Argentina at the weekend. Steve Kitshoff was asked about Saturday’s outcome being a wake-up call and he agreed it was.

Actually, the bells should have been ringing last year.

Nienaber may have got some answers after the past fortnight, but as he looks at the bigger picture, then it's the last nine months that should also have given him plenty of questions. Rustiness may explain some of the problems and that should be resolved in the coming weeks. However some of the fundamental breakdowns that occurred on Saturday and in those matches at the end of last year — poor defence, being lacklustre under the high ball and inefficiency in the attacking zone — should concern Nienaber.

There is time to fix it, but after Saturday, 55 days suddenly, doesn’t look like that much time.