The Springboks have dealt with the disappointment of their heart-breaking 13-8 defeat against Ireland in Paris on Saturday and wasted no time turning their attention fully to Sunday’s final Rugby World Cup Pool B encounter against Tonga in Marseille.
“Our only focus this week is on Tonga,” said Springbok assistant coach Daan Human. “We are not looking further. We need to beat them to progress to the quarter-final.”
Depending on how the pool pans out, points’ difference could also be important, but Human was careful about placing too much emphasis on that: “The most important thing for us this weekend will be to win and do what we have to do in order to qualify for the quarter-final, and that means we have to scrum well, maul well and get the points we need to qualify.
Putting the defeat last weekend behind them, Human said: “In the last maul, it was probably one of the best lineout throws I’ve seen, and we didn’t score a try. If we had scored there, we would have won the game.”
“We’re still backing our maul as well going forward and we will work on that.
Human said the Springboks are expecting a massive onslaught from Tonga especially come scrum time.
“If not the heaviest pack in the whole competition, they’ve got a massive hit and we need to be able to handle that. They put Ireland under a lot of pressure. They’ve got a hell of a pack.”
"For a scrum coach that’s the thing you dream about, especially the way the guys are working and grafting week in and week out. They never complain, they never say ‘no, not one more’, because they know it’s working. It’s been working for us in the past and I’m sure it will work for us going forward.
“It’s awesome the way the guys train. They can handle it. They’re built for this - this is what we do.”
