Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber rotated his starting team for their final Rugby World Cup pool match against Tonga on Sunday at 21:00.
The outcome of this match will be crucial in determining which two teams from Pool B advance to the quarter-finals, and who they will play in the top-eight playoff.
“This is a strong and physical team, which is exactly what need against a side like Tonga that plays with passion and force,” said Nienaber.
“Each one of us understands the importance of this match with an eye on qualifying for the quarter-final, so accurate execution, physicality and doing our basics right will be vital to get the desired result.”
“We are still in the World Cup, and we know we have the players and skills to defend our title. We now need to transfer all the hard work at training into producing a top-quality performance,” Nienaber added.
"We’ve got certain things that we have to rectify that we couldn’t get right against Ireland. In terms of our game plan, there are definitely some things that we will try a little bit differently in this game to see if it works.
"The result is very important but we need to fix that if we do get the opportunity to go into a quarter-final or knockout rugby. If we don’t fix those things we probably won’t last long in this competition."
Nienaber said that he expects that Deon Fourie [starting hooker] and Marco van Staden [on the bench] to drive the set-piece - scrums, lineouts - within the Springboks' system:
"There will be challenges within those systems and then they, as the set-piece leaders, will drive certain set-pieces for us, so in scrum time if things aren’t going our way, [they need] to find solutions.
"The coaches, Deon [Davids] and Daan [Human] have put something in place that they think will be good enough to get the better of Tonga in those departments. If those plans or structures don’t work, they’ll have to find solutions.
"The other thing is they must just bring their normal game. There’s going to be 200 breakdowns in this game, and there they have to apply themselves."
Nienaber expected a major physical challenge from Tonga: “They will enter with the mindset that they have nothing to lose after going down in their opening two matches of the tournament, so they won’t hold back.
“They had impressive moments in their matches against Scotland and Ireland, so this will require a full 80-minute effort. The emphasis for us will be on doing what we need to do to progress out of the pool stages and to bounce back from last week and build momentum.