Despite Wales being ranked 11th in the world and winning only two of their 10 matches this season, the nippy Bok scrumhalf said they knew what the hosts are capable of after lining up against many of their players in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are such tough and competitive players, and they are not afraid of anything,\u201d said Van den Berg, who plays for the Lions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey chase lost causes, so the experience we\u2019ve gained from the Vodacom URC is that they are guys who are willing to fight for each other, and they\u2019ll certainly get together and want to put up a massive fight this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
With both teams missing a bunch of players due to the match falling outside of the international window, Van den Berg said that although it would be difficult to predict how they would cope with it, the Boks had no doubt it would be a big game for the Welsh.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir team may not have played together much, so it\u2019s difficult to say how they\u2019ll react to it, but no matter what team they select, they are going to be ready to give everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a lot of quality players, and I\u2019ve played against some of them in the Vodacom URC, and they are very talented, so we know what to expect from some of their individuals. We will certainly not take this match lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Grant Williams being one of the players who returned to their unions and clubs after the Boks\u2019 24-13 victory against Ireland last Saturday, Van den Berg said he hoped to grab the opportunity with both hands if he was selected in Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus\u2019 team, which will be announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I\u2019d just like to contribute to the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the players have done their best to add to the structure this year, so if I get the chance to play, that will be my main goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zooming in on the match, Van den Berg said the Boks hoped to go out there and give their best as they do in every Test match: \u201cFor us, it\u2019s about building and getting better each week. We are preparing as well as we can, and we want to go out there and give it a full go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scrumhalf was also full of praise for the six South Africans named in the World Rugby Men\u2019s 15s Dream Team on Tuesday \u2013 Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx, Thomas du Toit, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, and Cheslin Kolbe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are amazing rugby players, and it\u2019s a massive privilege to see how they train each day and carry themselves on the field, but it\u2019s also been great to get to know them off the field,\u201d said Van den Berg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are amazing people and deserve all the credit that comes their way, so I\u2019d like to congratulate them. The exciting part is that we can expect so much more from them in future, so I\u2019m keen to see how they, and the rest of the team goes, moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there would have been a few guys who just missed out on it, and I\u2019m also excited to see how their journeys go in the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The match kicks off at 17h10 (SA time) and will be broadcast live on SuperSport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite Wales being ranked 11th in the world and winning only two of their 10 matches this season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-308027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}