Elton explains why Boks retain their good headspace

The disappointment of losing to New Zealand in their opening World Cup game has been tempered a bit for the Springboks by the knowledge that their first defeat of the season came on a night when their execution was a long way short of where they want it to be.

There’s been much criticism of individual players in the Bok team, particularly from social media back home, and someone like Faf de Klerk has had to duck his share of brickbats since the 23-13 defeat in Yokohama. But while De Klerk would be the first to admit that his performance wasn’t complete as he was responsible for too many misdirected kicks, it wasn’t the plan that was wrong but the execution.

Those who slam De Klerk for kicking too much are forgetting he was playing to the plan, and it was a plan that has worked five out of the six times the Boks have played this year. When De Klerk is on point with his tactical game it is so effective that no-one notices how much he is kicking and the Boks are hard to stop.

In the wake of the defeat and after the post-mortem, it has understandably been regarded as encouraging by the Boks that even given the off-night with the execution of some key aspects of their game, they were still within touching distance of the All Blacks with 15 minutes to go.

Elton Jantjies, who will get his first chance to play at a World Cup against Namibia at the weekend - he wasn’t selected for the 2015 World Cup - summed it up well when he faced the media in Nagoya on Tuesday morning.

“The things that we are normally really good at in terms of our kicking game, aspects of defence and aerial skills weren’t as good as they should have been,” said Jantjies.

“We have been working on getting 8 to 10 out of 10 at things like our kicking game rather than the 5 or 6 out of 10 that we got against the All Blacks. We know we weren’t on our game. But that gives us things to work on which is a positive thing for us as a team. We still came close to beating the All Blacks and there wasn’t much in the game.

“We had a lot of ball possession and territory but they took two chances in the air and took both of them whereas we had the same situation and just couldn’t finish off. It is something we can work on and get better at.”

Jantjies wasn’t part of the match day squad last week but he was part of the preparation.

“It was an exciting week (even though I wasn’t playing) and I thought that even though we lost we know we have things we can improve on and we can improve in our system. We are in the right headspace and I personally am very excited about playing my first World Cup game.”

The team to face Namibia will only be named on Wednesday but Jantjies is expected to line up at flyhalf, with Herschel Jantjies partnering him at halfback and Frans Steyn alongside him on the other side at inside centre.

Jantjies is looking forward being paired up again with his unrelated namesake and will have fond memories of the previous time they started together in the opening Rugby Championship match against Australia. The younger Jantjies, the Stormers scrumhalf, scored a brace of tries on debut and walked away with the man of the match award.

“I have a good room mate partnership with Herschel. He is a young player who embraces his opportunities and uses them. You will notice he gets really cross with himself when he makes mistakes. That is a good sign. That is an indication that he wants to learn. He wants to grow and not mistakes.”

In Steyn, Jantjies has a player from the opposite extreme in terms of experience playing on his outside.

“We are all very comfortable around Frans, he puts the group at ease. But he also has a switch that he flicks when there is a need to do the job. He is an old toppie with a bit of youth in him,” said Jantjies.