Aussie Waugh's as good as Gold
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:46
The fact that George Smith is not in Australia's starting line-up for Saturday's Tri-Nations Test against South Africa in Johannesburg will not make them a lesser threat at the breakdowns, according to Springbok assistant coach Gary Gold.
"There's not much change," the Bok forward coach said about the replacement of Smith in the starting side by Phil Waugh.
"They're very similar in many ways, especially defensively," he said. "They're very hard on the ball as are three or four other players in their team."
"The Springboks will have their work cut out at breakdown time, " he admitted.
"It is a department in which the Springboks have been totally outplayed by the Wallabies in their previous two Tests."
Gold said that injured Springbok lock Bakkies Botha was being missed, despite the good work of Andries Bekker who has come along in leaps and bounds, especially as far as his physicality goes.
"Andries has worked very hard," he said, and predicted that Bekker will be a world class lock in the near future.
"But Bakkies is a very tough guy, like a silent assassin.
"He'll hit his 15 rucks but he'll hit them really hard, and when you're playing against teams who have quality opensides [No.6 flanks] they'll think twice when they see Bakkies on his way there."
Gold said that attention was paid not only the strategy and structure at the breakdowns but that a fair amount of time was also spent on the technical aspects such as the presentation of the ball.
Meanwhile, the fact that Australia have not won at what was the former Ellis Park since the second Test of the 1963 Wallaby tour to South Africa means nothing according to Bok coach Peter de Villiers.
"We're not interested in history, we're looking forward to tomorrow [Saturday]," he said.
Asked about where he would deploy the versatile Ruan Pienaar off the bench, De Villiers said that he never decided on replacements beforehand and that any changes from the bench would be determined by the way the team and or individuals played.
"I'll look at the legs of the players and make the decisions from there," he said.
SAPA
