The Boks managed to tug off a 38-21 victory at a packed Kings Park in Durban on Saturday, nevertheless it was a bitter-sweet end result as the Springboks nonetheless in the end completed second in the Rugby Championship.
So far this 12 months, the Boks have gained six video games and misplaced three, however lacking out on the Rugby Championship title in a 12 months the place the All Blacks actually weren’t at their greatest has been seen by many as a missed alternative.
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The Boks have expanded their participant depth and made some key progress in sure areas, however the end-of-year tour – which is able to embrace video games towards main sides resembling Ireland and France – will remember to present an actual check.
Following the conclusion of the Rugby Championship, tell us in the ballot beneath how you would rate the Boks out of 10 in 2022?
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The Springboks at the moment discover themselves in third place in the newest World Rugby rankings following the conclusion of the 2022 Rugby Championship.
Tournament winners, the All Blacks, are in fourth.
Ireland proceed to steer the approach forward of France, whereas Australia have plummeted to a lowly ninth place, beneath Argentina who completed backside of the Rugby Championship log.
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TOP 10 IN THE LATEST WORLD RUGBY RANKINGS:
1. Ireland – 90.03
2. France – 89.41
3. South Africa – 89.00
4. New Zealand – 87.30
5. England – 86.25
6. Scotland – 81.93
7. Wales – 81.28
8. Argentina – 81.21
9. Australia – 80.65
10. Japan – 77.74
Doing the double over the Pumas, whereas selecting up wins towards each New Zealand and Australia represented progress in response to coach Jacques Nienaber, though he additionally admitted there have been key enhancements nonetheless required.
“We had a plan to go full on to win the Championship. We were on task up to minute 35 and then they got a penalty and the score before half time changed the dynamics.
“I think we can’t fault the effort from the players. We all sat down and bought into giving it as good a shot as we could – unfortunately we came up short, but you must never take a win in the Bok jersey for granted and we won’t. It’s special…”
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The Bok facet are subsequent in motion towards Ireland, the No 1 ranked workforce in the world, in Dublin in November when Nienaber stated they would have a fair higher thought of the workforce’s progress.
“We’re not where we want to be yet. We need consistency, and we’ll probably get a pretty good idea on our end-of-year tour. We play No 1 and No 2 [France] teams in the world and we have an SA A side, and it will be a challenging tour. But it will give us nice answers as to where we are.”
Springboks captain Siya Kolisi stated “we had some great, great moments in the Rugby Championship, and we also had some weak moments”.
“We know we can win against anyone in the world on our day, but today was a big step forward because it was a third win in a row and we want to take that momentum with us into the end-of-year tour,” added the Bok captain.
The Boks completed one level behind New Zealand on the remaining standings
Nienaber famous that he had used 34 gamers in the event and that some questions had been answered over place depth.
“We built some squad depth. Some players got some experience but that wasn’t the main aim – which was to win the Rugby Championship and we fell short on that. But there were some positives to take out of it,” he stated.
“We are in a better position now in terms of learning about certain positions than we were when we started. There was always this big issue around flyhalf and whether Damian (Willemse) could play there and hats off to Frans (Steyn) today, in a very short space of time he had to slot in and he will just get better in terms of that.
“We’ve also had Kurt-Lee (Arendse) and Canan (Moodie) come through and now Cheslin (Kolbe) has to perform if he wants to get back in – but we know he is quality, and we look forward to welcoming him back.”
WATCH | HIGHLIGHTS: SPRINGBOKS V ARGENTINA
Springbok workforce: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Canan Moodie, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Frans Steyn, 9 Jaden Hendrikse, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Subs: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Ox Nche, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Duane Vermeulen, 21 Kwagga Smith, 22 Faf de Klerk, 23 Kurt-Lee Arendse.
Argentina workforce: 15 Juan Cruz Mallia, 14 Emiliano Boffelli, 13 Matias Moroni , 12 Jeronimo De La Fuente, 11 Juan Imhoff, 10 Santiago Carreras, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Pablo Matera, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 5 Tomas Lavanini, 4 Matias Alemanno, 3 Eduardo Bello, 2 Julian Montoya (c), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro.
Subs: 16 Agustin Creevy, 17 Mayco Vivas, 18 Joel Sclavi, 19 Guido Petti, 20 Pedro Rubiolo, 21 Tomas Cubelli, 22 Benjamin Urdapilleta, 23 Bautista Delguy.
