Jean de Villiers believes the Springboks will target the All Blacks’ aerial game when the sides meet in their Rugby Championship encounter at Eden Park on Saturday.
The aerial game and restarts were areas in which the All Blacks struggled to master and contributed to their downfall when they suffered a 29-23 defeat against Argentina in their previous Test in Buenos Aires a fortnight ago.
After two rounds of action in the Rugby Championship, all four teams have won one and lost one match in the competition, and only two points separate the teams in the standings.
The All Blacks are currently setting the pace at the top of the table with six points, while the Wallabies are in second position, just one point adrift, with the Springboks and Los Pumas having each amassed four points.
Ahead of the eagerly anticipated clash at Eden Park, where New Zealand are aiming to extend their unbeaten record to 51 Tests and the Boks are looking to secure their first triumph at the venue since 1937, De Villiers feels the world champions will replicate the aerial bombardment tactic which helped the Boks’ team of 2009, who he was a part of, to clinch three successive victories over the All Blacks and also resulted in them winning the Tri Nations title that year.
“Yeah, I think it was a bit of that,” he told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin. “But more so, I think the personnel that we had. We had a guy in Fourie du Preez who was fantastic as a decision maker at nine playing for us. But also, his execution of the box kick was just brilliant.
‘Always competitive in the air’
“Then you add to that, Bryan Habana was really good in the air, always competitive in the air.
“You know, being able to firstly get to the ball, but then also get in the air and make it difficult for the opposition, along with JP Peterson as well, who was 1,92 metres tall.
“So, you’ve got that kind of reach in the air versus their opposing numbers at the time.
“So it was a little bit of that, but then also seeing, sometimes the lesser risk is being able to put it in the air and make it a kick that you can compete for. And then after that, you keep ball-in-hand once you’ve retrieved the possession.”
And with the current All Blacks team also battling under the high ball and with wet weather predicted for Saturday, De Villiers expects the Boks to replicate that tactic.
“It’s fair to say that that will be a tactic this weekend again, where we did see a vulnerability in the air from New Zealand at times,” he added.
“And, you know, you take a guy like Cheslin Kolbe, who is not the biggest, but he gets in the air and he gets quite high in the air, being able to compete for those balls, so good at that.
“Someone like a Canan Moodie, also really good (in the air) and it should be an interesting battle.
‘Kicking game will have a big part to play’
“If you are saying that it’s probably going to be wet as well, then even more so. It’s going to be for the scraps on the ground, and the kicking game will have a big part to play in that.”
South Africa used the aerial tactic to perfection during their narrow one-point victory over France in their 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-final in Paris, with two well-executed high kicks wreaking havoc in Les Bleus’ defence and leading to tries for the Boks.
Devlin asked De Villiers if that was the world champions’ way to force the opposition into making mistakes, and he replied: “I would agree with that. But also knowing that it’s a skill execution.
“So the better you do it, the better the odds of getting the ball back. So it’s having that contest in the air as well, where the traffic is not that much.
“Even now, you know, you’ve got a far clearer run into being able to contest with a new nose.
“So if your skill execution is really good and your contesting is really good, the odds are that you’ll get back more than what you won. And also from a territory point of view, now at least you are, you know, call it between 15 and 25 metres closer to the opposition trial line, you know, whether that is on attack or then defence.
“So, yeah, that will be an interesting battle and certainly a battle that we will see on the weekend.
“And, you know, as long as it remains a contest in the air, I think then you’re going well. It’s going to be about the scraps. You know, it’s going to be about the bounce of the ball, the bravery, the commitment to when the ball is loose to be there first.
“It’s not just the guy contesting, it’s about the other players around the ball as well being able to, when there’s a ball bobbing wherever, to be able to jump on it, you know, secure the ball and from there you can attack again.
“So it’s much more than just going up. And it’s about the execution and the plan with that, not just the guy kicking and the guy chasing, but everyone else around as well.”
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