'Backs to the wall' Boks to set record straight

The Springboks and Pacific islanders will go head-to-head in the second round of Pool B matches at the World Cup – Samoa coming off a first-round win and the Boks still hurting from their humiliating loss to Japan.

While the world is celebrating the greatest upset in World Cup history and the rising of the Japanese as a rugby force on the global stage, the Boks have gone back to the drawing board for what has become a crucial point in their campaign.

Another defeat will almost certainly spell the end of their World Cup ambitions.

Springbok flyhalf Patrick Lambie, who started in the 32-34 loss to japan at the weekend, admitted that the opening match was way below the acceptable Bok standards.

"Obviously it wasn't the performance that we were looking for as a Springbok side," Lambie told a media briefing.

He admitted that the Boks are now with their backs to the wall, but felt it may just be a good place to be for the team.

"Certainly since I have been involved with the Springboks, it has brought the best out of the side to have our backs against the wall," said the 24-year-old.

"All of our focus is completely on Saturday against Samoa, we really want to make things right."

Bok assistant coach Ricardo Loubscher said they must ensure their attitude is right if they are going to turn things around.

"I believe every player, ever coach and every member of management are good to go," Loubscher said, adding: "We want to go correct the mistakes we made."

Loubscher said they will continue to back the players, despite their World Cup humiliation.

"We back the plan, we back the coaches, we're confident that in our squad of 31 anybody can step in at any time," Loubscher said in response to doubts about South Africa's approach.

Despite heavy criticism after the defeat, Loubscher said the team still believed in their tactics and would not change ahead of a physically challenging Pool B clash with Samoa in Birmingham on Saturday.

"We believe in the way we want to play, our blueprint," Loubscher said.

"We are creating a lot of opportunities.

"It is easy to look back and identify those opportunities and talk about it, but under pressure you want to make sure you create those opportunities and finish them," declared the coach.

"We're not happy at our performance in the week but hopefully this will bring us closer together as a unit," Loubscher added.

"We're confident in terms of the way we want to play. The focus is to make sure we prepare well as a team and focus on beating Samoa."

The Samoans – who are seeded second in the pool – opened with a 25-16 win over United States on Sunday.

"All the players are looking forward to getting our team review over and done with and getting out onto the training field and moving on," Loubscher said.

"We are all really looking forward to making this right, we are all hurting more than ever before now."

He said they are expecting a very physical Samoan side.

"It is always tough to play against them, we have played them a few times now.

"First things first for us is to make sure that we handle their physicality obviously we want to play the way we want to play – so it is important for us to play the way we want to play and that is always to score tries."

The other team in the pool is Scotland, who get their campaign underway against Japan on Wednesday.

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