Boks now forced to look at Biggar picture

SA and Wales are level in their three-Test series after the tourists won the second clash 13-12 in Bloemfontein and it required somewhat of a Hollywood script to get them deadlocked.

The 78th-minute try by Josh Adams and nerveless touchline conversion by Gareth Anscombe provided the denouement few Bok fans saw coming after their side went 12-3 up after 58 minutes.

However, Bok coach Jacques Nienaber who had made 14 changes to his starting team for this clash, saw his charges drop off in the final quarter as Wales punished their indiscretions.

Bok fans are likely to urge Nienaber to forget Paris and focus on Cape Town as he prepares his team for the decider there on Saturday. Wales pose a clear and present danger.

Nienaber, who made those changes to spread game time in his group in preparation for next year's World Cup in France, will revert to what he deems his best XV.

The coach answered in the affirmative when asked whether he will do so, but was unapologetic about the motivation behind his selections for the second Test.

He had stated in the build-up that winning remained the team's top priority but that he needed to test his squad's depth ahead of the showpiece tournament next September.

On that score he would have gained valuable insights, not just from their performance in the first hour but the way in which his players lost they way in the last 20 minutes.

“Now we have answers on some of the 42 players in our group,” Nienaber said. “That was the point of our plan. What if we played our first-choice XV and still lost? Then we wouldn't have given these players an opportunity tonight.

“We could have gone the conservative route by trying to wrap up the series before making the changes but this is what we wanted out of the game.”

While the Springboks lost for the first time to Wales on SA soil, the new faces that were exposed to the Test arena would have gained valuable experience from this exercise. They could, however, do without the pall that comes with a home defeat.

Wales captain Dan Biggar said he was proud of his team's effort. “The bench made a huge impact. I could not be prouder to be a Welshman,” he said about their maiden win in SA over the Boks.

Though they didn't get the result, they came tantalisingly close. Nienaber lamented what could have been. “We didn't take all our opportunities. Our discipline let us down in the end.

'The intensity was there. There was inaccuracy in the first half. Discipline in the second half cost us and we gave them a foot in the door.”

Stand-in captain Handré Pollard said defeat was never acceptable. “As captain I could not ask for more, the effort was there. We weren't clinical enough.”

After their stuttering, but winning performance in the opening Test in Pretoria, scapegoats were easy to find. In defeat in Bloemfontein one would have assumed that task to be even easier. It's not and the coach has to be the lightning rod.

He will have to take the heat and only a performance of fist-thumping authority in Cape Town in the decider will mend matters with Bok fans, especially the 42,000 who assembled in Bloemfontein.

Coaches, in fact on occasion Nienaber, make the point that they don't just hand out Test caps and that they are earned. That remains one of Test rugby's truisms but the coach was keen to draw attention to the bigger picture when he made his selections for Bloemfontein.

That picture is now slightly blurred. The Bok focus now has to be the Biggar picture.

Project Paris remains but Cape Town has to come first.

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