I am giving up 80 minutes of my life on Saturday afternoon that I will never get back. My plea to my beloved Springboks is to batter this indifferent Welsh line-up and win by a record score.
If the Boks can do this, then those 80 minutes would have been 4,800 seconds of my life that I gladly have invested in the Boks.
I was very nervous about this Test on Tuesday afternoon, and then Warren Gatland named his match 23 and trepidation turned to anticipation.
Famine, in performance and result, turned to the probability of a feeding frenzy.
The world champion Boks, at close to full-strength in the run-on XV, should smash this Welsh bits and pieces selection, which has been picked to affirm who won’t be going to the World Cup in a backup capacity.
Gatland could have sent a team out to defend Wales’s fantastic home record of beating the Boks in four of their last five matches in Cardiff. Instead, he is going to use Saturday as a practice hit out to see how his kids and reserve strength measures against the defending champions.
Wales should get walloped.
The biggest winning record for the Boks in Cardiff is 22 points in 2007, just a month after Jake White’s Boks won the World Cup. In Cardiff the score was 34-12.
It is my wish that Siya Kolisi leads the Boks to a 23-plus point win, given the contrast in the respective experience and strength of the two squads.
Don’t be surprised if the Bok win by more than 30 points.
I want to see captain courageous Siya Kolisi on a rugby field and see him leave it on his terms, be it at 40 minutes or 60 minutes.
Over and above the final score and points differential, I want the Boks to finally put in that statement performance in 2023 that reminds the world why these blokes won a World Cup and take every supporter back to that glorious night in Japan in 2019 when the Boks scored 32 points and England got just 12 in the World Cup final.
I want to see the Boks physical edge in the set piece, a swagger in everything Manie Libbok does at flyhalf because he is getting such front-foot possession and I want to see him kick at 80-plus percent when aiming for the posts.
I want to see Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende turn back the clock to 2015 when they were among the most explosive midfield combinations in international rugby.
I want to see Wilile le Roux command the leadership presence of the back three and play with calm and allow wingers Canan Moodie and Cheslin Kolbe to create chaos on attack.
I want to see Jaden Hendrikse get through a game at No 9.
I want to see No.8 Jasper Wiese be explosive but also composed and I want to see him smash tacklers without spilling the ball.
I want to see Pieter-Steph du Toit powerful in everything he does in contact, and I want to see that engine of his purring.
I want to see captain courageous Siya Kolisi on a rugby field and see him leave it on his terms, be it at 40 minutes or 60 minutes.
I want to see RG Snyman give confirmation that he is as potent when starting at lock as he is when introduced against fatigued minds and vulnerable legs.
I want to see Jean Kleyn reaffirm the kind of performance we saw against the Wallabies in Pretoria and I want to see props Frans Malherbe and Steven Kitshoff school those picked to play in the Welsh No.3 and 1 jersey respectively.
I want to see hooker Malcolm Marx own the breakdown and not miss his lineout jumpers once and then I want to see the wizardry of Bomb Squader Damian Willemse in the final 30.
I believe in the Boks and I believe they should bury this Welsh line-up and end many Welsh players’ 2023 World Cup dream.
I want a lot from the Boks on Saturday afternoon, but mostly I want to switch off the telly and feel that the Boks have delivered a performance worthy of every one of their supporters’ time.
Selfishly, I want to feel OK with how I spend those 4,800 seconds that I can never get back.
Boks by 24.
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