Nick Mallett says the Springboks must improve their contestable kicking ahead of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks.
A Bok team featuring seven players returning from injury, and without 15 players who remained in South Africa to prepare for the All Blacks series, battled to a 17-10 win against Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday.
Mallett felt the disruption showed in a disjointed performance, particularly in an area that has traditionally been one of the Springboks’ strengths.
“I thought it was an understandably average performance by the Boks,” the former Bok coach said on the Talking Boks podcast.
“Getting so many players coming back from injury, not having played for quite a while, the team looked disconnected and inaccurate.
“And areas of our game which are normally real strong points – the contestable kicking – were very poor in this game.
“We either kicked it too long, which gave them very easy marks or an ability to counter-attack, or else we kicked it just straight up in the air and it came down on our own heads. So we didn’t get any forward momentum and get behind their pack.
“I thought the kicking from the halfbacks, [Cobus] Reinach and Sacha [Feinberg-Mngomezulu], and from [fullback Aphelele] Fassi was very poor in this game.
“Normally the contestables are an area of the game that’s almost like a set-piece for us. We’re very good at it.”
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Mallett was also critical of the Boks’ attack, saying they struggled to generate momentum against an aggressive Los Pumas defence.
“Thankfully, our scrum, with both front rows that came on, was excellent, except for the first scrum of the game when Thomas du Toit was penalised,” he said.
“Apart from that, we really got a lot of dominance in the scrum, which saved us because our attack was blunt. We didn’t have any offloads. We never got momentum through the middle.
“In the second half, when the Bomb Squad came on, there was a lot more energy.”
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Mallett also praised the Bok defence.
“When they had the ball and moved it around nicely, our defence was well set all the time. We were really well organised.
‘Our scramble defence – we pressed hard, but if they did play deeper and get it out wide, we had enough players from inside to press and shift late.
“I was really impressed at the end, where they had 16 or 17 phases in our 22, not to give another penalty away and to make some very, very good hits to actually knock them back away from our tryline.”
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The Boks’ attention will now turn to the All Blacks, who kicked off their Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour with a 38-21 victory against the Stormers in Cape Town on Friday night.
“The areas of the All Blacks’ game that were weak against the Stormers were scrums, maul defence and contestables in particular,” said Mallett.
“When the Stormers managed to get from set-piece to set-piece, the All Blacks didn’t look as though they enjoyed that at all. They wanted a quick, fast-flowing game.
“We need to get our contestable kicking back on point,” he added. “That is a very strong area of our game that was way off this last weekend.”
Photo: Juan Jose Gasparini/Gallo Images
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