Former captain Jean de Villiers is hopeful the Springboks will continue to use a style of play that moves the ball around at high speed when they take on the mighty French in Paris on Saturday night.
The Springboks demolished Japan 61-7 at Wembley Stadium this weekend, producing some dazzling running rugby, but the win was still built on forward dominance in the set-pieces and rolling mauls.
De Villiers points to the big French pack as a differentiator, however, in comparison to South Africa’s other opposition on tour.
“It’s going to be a huge game, something the Springboks would have identified right at the start of the season as being of high importance. We need a victory, really, for it to be a successful year. It will be tough to win at the Stade de France, but we have done it before,” former centre De Villiers told Sunday Times at the Gary and Vivienne Player Invitational at Sun City.
“In terms of the evolution of the team, it’s going to be interesting to see our approach. We need to put France under pressure from an attacking point of view, while still being physical and using our hugely valuable set-piece dominance, even though the French can match us with their physicality and their attack.
“I’d love to know what selection Rassie Erasmus will go with ― I have a feeling the 7/1 bench might be back. But I don’t agree we should not play fast, ball-in-hand rugby. We have shown before when we do that that we can put a lot of pressure on the opposition and we have scored some fantastic tries.”
“But we need to get the balance right and it’s also important where we run from ― we don’t want to do it from too deep. But I feel we’re getting closer to getting the balance between kicking and running right. France have a fantastic long kicking game and they have big forwards. But are they as athletic as ours?
“In 2022 in Marseille, unfortunately we lost after Pieter-Steph du Toit got a red card, but we kept running the ball back after they had kicked long, we made their forwards run shuttles. I just think we can run for a longer time, so we’re going to kick all their kicks back, sometimes we’ll run from a long way back.”
Former prop Steven Kitshoff, whose career was ended in February by a neck injury, says he has been blown away by some Springbok performances this year, but underwhelmed by others. The 33-year-old says their report card for the year would be boosted tremendously by beating France.
“It’s been an up-and-down year for the Springboks. There have been some exceptional Tests and some utterly poor ones. So I would give them a 6.5 out of 10 for this year at the moment, but they have got the capability to put the sword to the rest of international rugby,” Kitshoff told Sunday Times.
“I said it on my podcast [Game Time Podcast] that France will probably be our toughest game on tour and we need a good, confident start. Rassie was building combinations and taking momentum from the Japan game, which was a good win.”
Kitshoff is still involved with Western Province/Stormers rugby as a consultant, and says he has been impressed by young prop Zachary Porthen, who made his Springbok debut against Japan at just 21 year of age.
“Playing Zach at tighthead was a ballsy move, but Rassie was backing the experience around him. He’s trying to develop squad depth for the 2027 World Cup. I only met Zach last year, his debut season for Western Province when he played a couple of Currie Cup games.
“Zach is a massive athlete and fitter and stronger than most front row players. Now we must just hope that he has the head for international rugby,” Kitshoff said.
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