A long way to go before captain Siya Kolisi can hold the World Cup trophy aloft in Paris.
South Africa’s nerve-jangling 29-28 quarterfinal victory over hosts France has reignited belief the side can win back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles, but there is a long way to go before captain Siya Kolisi can hold the trophy aloft in Paris.
The Springboks were immense in the cauldron of the Stade de France and while there will be plenty of sore bodies, they must immediately turn their attention to semifinal opponents England, who they meet at the same venue on Saturday.
On paper, the Boks will be favorites with England having come into the tournament on the back of five defeats in six games, and had a gentle ride through the pool stages before almost coming unstuck against Fiji at the weekend.
But South Africa’s Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus believes it will be another huge test for his side.
“If we think England is bad because people from outside say they are not doing well … our reality is the truth, not the reality that people create outside our camp,” he said.
“We know from the (English) Premiership, a lot of our players play against them and we know Steve Borthwick is an excellent coach, which he showed at Leicester, and as a captain and a player for England.
“It will be a very tough test against a team that hasn’t lost a game (in France) and more or less conceded the same amount of tries and racked up the same amount of points (as South Africa).”
The Boks have shown their ability to switch between two styles, the attacking, ball-in-hand rugby they displayed in the first half against France, and then when they needed to close out the game, the more conservative use of the boot, for which they have been criticized as ‘dull’ in the past.
“As a team, we don’t want to be this wonderful rugby side that the whole world loves (because of their expansive style), but we do want to score tries,” Erasmus said.
“We had to adapt to try and score tries through more open, fluent, running rugby. And you could see in our try-scoring tally, there’s a lot scored by our backs, more than our forwards.”
The first World Cup semifinal will be played in Paris on Friday night between New Zealand and Argentina.