The Springboks arrived in Argentina late on Saturday night in good spirits and had a good night’s rest and full recovery day on Sunday ahead of their penultimate Castle Lager Rugby Championship match against Los Pumas at Estadio Unico Madre Ciudades in Santiago del Estero on Saturday.
The Boks flew to Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo and Ben-Jason Dixon (flanker) said he was excited about travelling to Argentina for the first time and for the mighty challenge ahead.
The Boks can seal their first Castle Lager Rugby Championship title since 2019 against Los Pumas on Saturday, the only other team in the running for the title with two rounds remaining.
South Africa hold an eight-point lead at the top of the standings over Argentina and while Dixon said a victory would be fantastic, they are aware of the effort it would take to topple the hosts, who have beaten New Zealand and Australia in the competition so far.
“It’s amazing and so exciting to be here,” said Dixon.
“A lot of people say it’s quite a hostile feeling playing in a stadium in Argentina where the fans really love their team and make it difficult for the opposition, although not in a bad way, they just won’t make it easy.
“But it’s a privilege to play against them here, and I’m hopefully I’ll get a chance to play. Just being here is great because I’ve always wanted to visit South America. We also had a quick stopover in Sao Paulo on our way here, so I’m keen to see a little of Buenos Aires and to get back to training on Monday.”
The hard-running and physical loose forward adapted quite easily to long journey to Argentina. Dixon said: “Similarly to the Australia trip – which was also my first experience there – it was not bad. We could sleep a little on the aeroplane and we had a good night’s rest last night, so it worked out well.”
Zooming in on Saturday’s Test, Dixon said the Boks had to be on point to come away with a victory and hopefully secure the title.
“Our mindset going into the week will be to treat it like a final, and I’m sure everyone in the squad will zoom into the game that way so that we can hopefully get the win,” said Dixon.
“They like to play with the ball, so we cannot give them anything to pounce on, meaning the keys for us will be to control our possession and play well when we have the ball.”
The Boks will begin their preparations for the clash in Buenos Aires on Monday and are set to travel to Santiago del Estero on Wednesday night. Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is set to announce his match-23 for the clash on Tuesday.
