adminCape Town – The Springboks made a winning start to the mid-year international season, but their performance against the World XV raised some concerns at Newlands on Saturday.
Nick Mallett, who described his World XV team as a “pick-up side”, was clearly impressed by the way his forwards dominated at times.
“To walk the Bok scrum like they (the World XV pack) did at one stage of the second half, I thought was a tremendous effort from our pack,” Mallett said at the post-match press conference.
“The two locks, Alistair Hargreaves and Juandre Kruger, did really well in the line-outs.”
None of the Springboks front-row forwards did their reputations proud and Mallett singled out his prop Pat Cilliers for praise instead.
He said the six Test-capped Springbok scrummed “very well” when he joined the fray as a second-half replacement.
“I was happy with our set-pieces, especially since we didn’t have much time to prepare.
“Our scrumming was especially good, and thought Pat did very well when he came on.”
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer would have had serious concerns about the frailty of the Bok scrum but he did well to mask his uneasiness.
Instead, he consoled himself by mentioning that statistically the South Africans had the best scrum internationally last season.
“We had the best scrum in the world last year, and that is not just me saying that, it is what the statistics told us,” said Meyer. — Sport 24
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