Bok Women at World Cup to compete against the best

The Springbok Women are not looking at permutations or wishing for a potential opponent in next weekend’s Women’s Rugby World Cup quarterfinals after they travelled to England to compete against the best.

That is the view of Laurian Johannes-Haupt, one of the Bok Women’s assistant coaches, as they fine-tune preparations to face France in Northampton on Sunday in the Pool D decider.

The winner of the Franklin’s Gardens clash will play the team finishing second in Pool C. Whether that will be the defending champions New Zealand or Ireland, it is all the same for the South Africans, Johannes-Haupt said.

The Black Ferns take on Ireland in Brighton and Hove on Sunday. The two sides have taken a maximum of 10 points from their first two games, but New Zealand (+89) have the edge over Ireland (+44) on points’ difference, so are likely to top their pool in the event of a draw.

“That [quarterfinal] is a week from now but we certainly don’t mind who we play in the quarters as the nature of the competition is that it gets tougher the further you progress,” said Johannes-Haupt.

“We want to play the best. In this case we are playing the number four and then a week later the number three or five in the world. That is what we came for.”

Playing France on Sunday and with a quarterfinal spot in the bag, the Bok Women will go for the win, she said.

“They are fourth on the world rankings and finished second in the Six Nations and have huge experience of tournaments such as the World Cup. They certainly are as good as either of next week’s opponents, so this will be a nice dress rehearsal for us.”

Johannes-Haupt said as the Boks are into the playoffs this changed some aspects of their approach, such as team selection, but the main objective remains to deliver their best performance ever against France.

“We trained against France on our tour in April and that helped a lot as the players could see some pictures and now know what to expect in certain areas of the game.

“It was a training session, but we took a lot of positives out of that. The good momentum we have gained in the past few months is added incentive to go at them hard and with purpose.”

The Bok Women side to face France will be named on Friday and Johannes-Haupt predicted some changes.

“We want to play against them with a particular tactic in mind, so the team will be tweaked accordingly. It will be silly to move away from our direct and physical approach that worked so well in recent months, but we will freshen the squad after three weeks on tour.

“The nice thing is everyone is keen to go out and prove our performances are sustainable and that the huge support we get from back home is justified and celebrated.”

SA Rugby media