Nienaber expects clear idea on Boks’ World Cup squad after European tour
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Jacques Nienaber has admitted the Springboks are not where they are supposed to be, but says he should have a good idea of his World Cup squad at the conclusion of the year-end tour to Europe that starts in November.
The Boks, who failed to win the Rugby Championship despite their 38-21 win over Argentina at Kings Park on Saturday, turn their attention to the European tour, where they meet Ireland, France, Italy and England.
The 2-1 home series win over Wales and the Rugby Championship saw the emergence of young players Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie and Jaden Hendrikse, who caught the eye with impressive performances.
Coach Nienaber will also be boosted by the availability again of senior players Cheslin Kolbe, Handrè Pollard, Damian Willemse, Cobus Reinach, Sbu Nkosi, who was part of the last match against Argentina, and possibly Elton Jantjies, who is dealing with off-field issues.
“We are not there yet, as Siya [Kolisi, the Bok captain] alluded to earlier, we need consistency. We will probably get a good idea of the World Cup squad after the end-of-year tour.
“We play the No 1 and No 2-ranked teams [Ireland and France] in the world in the first two games and we also have the SA 'A' side playing there. It will be a challenging tour for us, but we will have answers after it as to where we are as a team going into the World Cup.
“I don’t want to harp on this issue of we are looking for answers all the time. But the nice thing is that when we started this year, I said it was going to be a tough 2022 looking at the rankings and who we were going to play.
“The only team that we have not played outside the top 10 was Italy this year.”
Nienaber said the importance of playing top-ranked teams is that those matches test the capabilities of the players.
“And that’s exactly what you want — proper Test matches where you can test your players to see if they can handle it, like Elrigh Louw last weekend in Argentina. It was a big game away from home in a hostile atmosphere in Buenos Aires.
“I thought in general he came through it quite well though there are some aspects of his game he needs to work on.”
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