Still smarting from their shock defeat to Japan in their opening game of the tournament, the Springboks have since moved through the gears to approach something nearing their best form, finishing group play with a 64-0 romp against USA last Wednesday.
South Africa assistant coach John McFarland believes that with Dan Biggar proving deadly with his boot, the Springboks must be squeaky clean on Saturday to deny the Ospreys fly half from adding to his points tally.
“The key to winning any knockout game is your discipline, you can’t give anything away but at the same time you want your opponents to give penalties away too,” he said.
“It’s essential, if you look at all the top games you build the score through your opponent’s errors. It is something we have been focusing on this week and must be stricter on.”
With Wales and Australia producing a humdinger of a finale to Pool A on Saturday, McFarland cast a close eye on the titanic struggle which saw the Wallabies win a hard fought clash, thereby finishing top of the group and avoiding South Africa in the last eight.
“It was a great game, a game with passion. They played like it was knockout rugby, as they knew the loser would be playing us,” he said.
“I think everyone was impressed by Australia and the way they defended all over the pitch was incredible, the scrum, the lineouts. It’s what we want to see, it’s what the World Cup is all about.”
The Boks’ assistant coach was glowing in his praise of the Wallaby defence which kept its tryline intact despite being down to 13 men at a critical stage in the second half.
“It was a tremendous credit to those in the scrum. They played really well and it shows how much they have improved.
“It was a great read by (Adam) Ashley-Cooper at the end and he stopped everything stone dead and you could see by the Aussies’ reaction that was the game changer.
“One thing I noticed was that Australia were far more focused, far more physical and far more content in the second half. They put pressure on them straight from the kick-off, there was a lot of difference in the two sides at that point.”
