Boks have a scheduling advantage

The Springboks face an interesting week, but unlike many of their opponents much of their interest will be focused away from themselves as they wait to find out who they will play in their Rugby World Cup quarterfinal.

The Boks will become the first nation competing at this World Cup to have completed their Pool schedule once they’ve dealt with Canada here in Kobe on Tuesday, and then they have an almost two week wait before they play their quarterfinal. The match between the winners of Pool A and the runners up in Pool B, which the Boks will almost certainly be, takes place at Tokyo Stadium on Sunday, 20 October.

That should be perceived as an advantage by the Boks. While some other teams face the pressure of having to play effective Pool deciders this week, and others have to wait until Saturday or Sunday before completing this initial phase of the tournament, the Boks will be putting their feet up on Wednesday and Thursday before regrouping on Friday.

REST COMES AT RIGHT TIME

The rest, and the mental break from rugby, should do a squad that has been in Japan for over a month now a lot of good and help freshen them up for the business end of the tournament. Not that they won’t be paying attention to what is happening elsewhere, for the exciting conclusion to the Pool A battle does impact on them.

Japan, who are unbeaten in three games, are three points ahead of the rest in their pool and have the Japan nation squarely behind them, play Scotland in the final Pool game in Yokohama on Sunday, and it will only be after that game that the Boks will know who they will be playing in the first knock-out game. If Japan win, they will play the team they beat in Brighton in that famous day in 2015, if they lose it will probably be Ireland who end up as Pool A winners as they should beat Samoa in their final game.

Before the tournament started the Boks would have jumped with joy at the prospect of playing Japan rather than Ireland or Scotland, but that is no longer clear. Ireland have struggled to convince since their opening win in wet weather against the Scots, while Japan, if they make it to a quarterfinal, will feel that just making it that far is a case of objective achieved and they’d go into the Tokyo game feeling they had nothing to lose and plenty to gain.

STARS LOOK ALIGNED FOR JAPAN

Japan did what was expected of them when they beat Samoa at the weekend, but it was the way they managed to grab an important bonus point with a try off the last move of the game that might have got observers to start believing that the stars are aligned for the hosts. The emotion of the thousands of Japanese people who watched the game at the Kobe Fan Park spoke of a nation that is starting to believe that the impossible may indeed be possible. A win over Scotland will enable them to step into territory they’ve never been in before - a World Cup finals phase.

Not that the Boks are surprised at Japan’s success. Coach Rassie Erasmus said ahead of the tournament he wouldn’t be surprised to see Japan in the quarterfinal, while the Bok coaching group as a collective have never hidden their high regard for their Japanese counterparts. Jamie Joseph and Tony Brown, both Kiwis and former All Blacks, are renowned for their innovation and while the Boks won comfortably enough when the two sides met in a pre-World Cup warm-up game, the South African brains trust will be expecting them to have learned from that defeat and to have schemed up a way to overcome the shortcomings that were exposed that day.

BOKS NOT LOOKING AHEAD

Right now the Boks say they aren’t too focused on who their opponents will be. They will think about that after they do the necessary by securing the points against Canada that they need to be sure of their passage into the next round.

"At the moment, the focus is just on the games we are playing. We know that we might face either Ireland, Japan or Scotland," said Bok assistant coach Mzwandile Stick on the eve of the Canada game.

"It’s good to see a country like Japan managing to do well, particularly as the host nation. You can feel the vibe around Japan - everyone is excited about the World Cup. It’s always good to see the whole country united behind their team. We may call them smaller nations, but when it comes to the World Cup, they are showing that if you don’t pitch up on the day, you are going to be hurt.

"You can’t underestimate anyone in this tournament. Japan are a very dangerous side, and if you don’t rock up on the day, they can punish you. They have good ball players, and good balance between experienced and physical players. But we will only think about them when we get to that stage.”

EMPHATIC WIN

The Boks pretty much assured themselves of their passage to that stage with their emphatic 49-3 win over Italy at the weekend and they look to be building nicely and to have regained the momentum that might have been lost in their opening defeat to New Zealand. They’ve conceded just two tries and 29 points across three games, with those two tries both coming in the space of what defence coach Jacques Nienaber referred to as "five crazy minutes" in Yokohama.

It has though been the points scored that have been the focus since the loss to the All Blacks, and in that sense Stick, who is one of the coaches who takes responsibility for the attack, is pleased with the progress that has been made.

“It was very clear against the All Blacks that we didn’t convert our opportunities into points. That was the biggest work-on for us going forward in the tournament (after Yokohama)," said Stick.

"If you look at the manner in which we played the previous games against Namibia and Italy, when we got opportunities, at least we managed to convert those into points. I know a lot of people will expect us to play more running rugby when we play sides like Italy and Namibia, but the thing is, we’ve tried to make sure that we stick to the process and the way we want to play the game.

"The bigger picture for us is to make sure that when we get to the play-offs, we are well prepared with the way we want to play," he added.