After flaying All Blacks, Boks keep grounded eyeing Scotland opener

Despite galloping to dazzling record runaway wins over Wales and the All Blacks on successive weekends, the Springboks will not fall into the trap of getting carried away by their success, says centre Canan Moodie.

The Boks crushed Wales in Cardiff (52-16) in their first European warm-up match and were in sizzling form again when they gave the All Blacks a bloody nose (35-7) at Twickenham on Friday.

Moodie said the rampant Boks would remain grounded and are fully focused on their crucial opening 2023 Rugby World Cup match against Scotland at Stade Vélodrome in Marseille on September 10.

“We had a record win against Wales and then the All Blacks and we’ll take a lot of confidence from that, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Moodie said.

The versatile backline player said he had enjoyed his first run at centre after previously playing for the Boks on the wing.

“I’ve played centre for most of my career so though it wasn’t necessarily easy, everyone prepared me well in the week,” he said.

“Guys like Jesse Kriel and Lukhanyo Am are always helping me out and that makes my job much easier.”

Fullback Damian Willemse said the Boks would take great confidence into their opener against Scotland thanks to the emphatic win over the All Blacks.

“It was a good team win for us and we are over the moon. We can take a lot of confidence from this into the World Cup, which is only a few days away," he said.

“We are very happy with the way we played against the All Blacks. But that said, there are a few things we have to work on, and we’ll get back to the drawing board and do that.

“The next challenge is Scotland and that is probably the biggest game for us, so it’s important to remain in control of what we have to do to go into that match as well-prepared as possible.”

Willemse attributed his player of the match award on Friday to teamwork.

“I must give credit to the forwards. They gave us a great platform to attack from and that’s where it all started.

“Personally, I’d just like to continue working on my fundamentals. It was great to get some minutes under the belt, and I plan to go back on Monday and see if I can improve on my game.

“As South Africans, we are lucky to have a lot of support in London and we’d like to thank them for coming out and cheering us on. We certainly felt it out there. It was a great game and a special occasion.”

Bok coach Jacques Nienaber said one of the main areas to work on leading up to the Scotland clash is to round off the opportunities they create.

“The Boks had several opportunities to score tries, which we didn’t convert, so we’ll zoom in on that in Corsica and hopefully we can improve on that before our opening match,” he said.

The Boks left London for Corsica on Saturday for their World Cup training camp and were due to arrive at their World Cup base in Toulon on Sunday.

The five standby players who travelled with the team to the UK — Jean-Luc du Preez, Joseph Dweba, Handré Pollard, Am and Thomas du Toit — have returned to their clubs.

They all remain on call should the team suffer any injuries at the World Cup.

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