Rugby
Former Springbok Tips South Africa to Win The Rugby Championship
Former Springbok JP Pietersen backs South Africa to win the 2024 Rugby Championship, highlighting their physical dominance and depth. Discover his insights on the competition and Springbok strategies.
Image Credits: David Rogers/Getty Images
JP Pietersen, who is the current Sharks Currie Cup coach has played for the Springboks amassing a total of 120 points in the green and gold spoke on the current Rugby Championship. Thus far in the competition, South Africa outmuscled Australia in their own backyard twice, with New Zealand and Argentina sharing a win apiece.
Australia vs. South Africa
“The Springboks played some outstanding rugby, that was the most complete performance in an away game. Rassie still talks about the frustration of the unforced errors and mistakes they made but to look at it from an outside perspective it was really some good rugby to watch,” Pietersen told SportsBoom.com.
“The Springboks were really physical on defence, scrums and mauls, and to open it up with the flair to move the ball around with guys like Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and connection with the speed on the outside with Arendse [Kurt-Lee].”
Image Credits: David Rogers/Getty Images
South Africa’s Exit from Super Rugby effects
Since South Africa’s departure from Super Rugby there has been a change in the dynamics of the rugby world. The All Blacks have dropped, and Australia have seen a major decline.
The All Blacks suffered a shock defeat to Argentina, who are also not included in Super Rugby anymore. New Zealand pundits have since came out and expressed their views that the South African counterparts were missed.
With that in mind, Pietersen was asked whether if it was a disadvantage for Australia and New Zealand not having South Africa playing in the Super rugby competition.
Pietersen responded, “I wouldn’t say it’s a disadvantage, 24 hours in rugby is a long time and I think Australia and New Zealand will bounce back this weekend. Respectfully, I feel only New Zealand and Australia can comment on that. We shouldn’t look too far ahead and look at the advantage and disadvantage rather judge after the competition.”
Obviously Australia is not in the same position as New Zealand, with Eddie Jones a last minute coach coming in and players moving around. They are in a difficult position currently and New Zealand are in a better position.
JP Pietersen
Law Variations in The Rugby Championship
SANZAAR confirmed that there will be several Law Variations that will be implemented in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship 2024. The thought process behind the variations is to speed up the game by reducing the amount of unnecessary stoppages and to clarify law interpretations.
These law variations include, the 20-minute red card, countdown clock for scrums [30 seconds], lineouts [30 seconds] and kicks at goal [60 seconds], protection of the nine at the base of the scrum, ruck and maul, and play on for a lineout not straight if the throw in is uncontested.
“It’s a variation with the red card, you always want 15 vs 15 players on the field. Obviously rugby is fast sport and rugby collisions happen then you take it up to the TMO [Television Match Official] who looks at the incident in slow motion which gives off the impression that the player [transgressor] had so much time to make the decision.”
“It’s a great call to bring in a decision to have 20 minutes for a red card. And of course there is also the bunker call which enables a decision to be reviewed if a yellow [card] should stay or be elevated to a red card.”
“With scrums, I don’t know much about scrums. I’m not too interested in scrums, I want the ball in player,” jokingly said Pietersen.
Prediction: Winner of The Rugby Championship 2024
In 2024, all four teams have played fixtures in the June-July test window and two rounds of fixtures thus far in The Rugby Championship.
South Africa, the back-to-back World Champions come off a tightly contested affair with Ireland which ended in a 1-1 series draw. New Zealand had a tough battle against a resilient England side and won the series 2-0. Australia were on an unbeaten run heading into The Rugby Championship, beating Wales comfortably on home soil. They also had a change in coach with former Ireland and New Zealand coach Joe Schmidt taking over as head coach.
“I will definitely go with the Springboks and I will tell you why. If you look their performance the past weekend, their functioning at the lineouts, scrums, tackled well and obviously their kicking game was outstanding. Funniest thing, we had a young man at 10 in Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Handre Pollard still on the bench. Even a Malcolm Marx coming off the bench, it just shows the depth of the Springbok team and quality they have in that group.”
We saw this weekend [vs Australia], Rassie made lots of changes and if you look at that bench there are 8 World Cup winning players there.
JP Pietersen
Its every coaches dream to have players like that and it just shows how deep they can go in the competition if they lose a couple of guys due to injuries. They way they play as well, very physical.”
“New Zealand wont much the Springboks physically, we saw what Argentina did to them. With the scrum dominance the Springboks have, including two different set of packs. I don’t think New Zealand can take the Springnoks physicality in the scrum, set piece and line speed of the defence. They will struggle to get passes across, especially with Handre, Manie [Libbok] and Sacha with the kicking game that can transfer pressure.”
Siya Coming Back to the Sharks
It was rumoured that Springbok captain Siya Kolisi will be coming back to the Sharks. Tensions were raised after the President of Racing 92 Jack Lorenzetti said Kolisi was out of shape and transparent at the conclusion of their domestic season. Pietersen a former teammate and long-time friend of Kolisi commented on the rumours.
“That is news to me, me and Siya have been talking. He never mentioned he was coming back to the Sharks. We will have to wait for Siya to say something I guess.”
Nathan has over a decade of knowledge and experience, both as a former professional sportsperson and journalist. Nathan, a former radio sports presenter and producer is an award-winning community radio sports producer/presenter.