Mendoza mania awaits Boks

Following their comfortable 27-6 victory at Newlands the Springboks will venture far out of their comfort zone when they play against the Pumas in Mendoza on Saturday.

Mendoza is over 1,000 km from Buenos Aires, and both Pumas and Springboks will find the atmosphere very different to that at their first Rugby Championship clash at Newlands on Saturday.

Argentina supporters in Mendoza are passionate and loud, and Pumas captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe's comment to reporters at Saturday's post-match media conference that "people are going to go crazy in Mendoza next week", should not be taken lightly by the Boks.

Describing the Newlands Test as a good first step for Argentina, Lobbe said the Argentinian players now appreciated the intensity of Rugby Championship matches and would take a lot of positives out of the game.

"Everyone gave 100 percent. It was very intense, very, very intense. We realise how good the South African defence is, how much pressure they put you under, but it was a good step for us.

"We're very proud to be in this tournament. It's the first, second and third strongest teams in the world, so we're going to work hard and do everything we can to try to improve.

"We have five more games of good rugby and I think if we use them and keep on giving everything as we did today [Saturday], we're going to improve and that's our main goal. If we improve, we'll be happy."

Looking ahead to the Test in Mendoza on Saturday, Lobbe said: "People are very excited back home. It's our first opportunity to have a tournament every year and that is something we've been looking for for a long time. We're going to be playing against the top three every weekend, so people are very excited and we're going to try to keep them believing in us.

"I think if we keep on giving everything on the field and try to be positive, as we tried to be today against a really good team, people are going to keep on backing us.

"I'm quite sure people are going to go crazy in Mendoza next week, and we're going to try to give everything on the pitch and give them a good game of rugby."

He expected next week's Test to be a similar game to this week's clash. Argentina would again try to take the initiative and be positive.

The team would engage in careful analysis of this week's Test and would continue to pursue their goal of improving each week and to be "very serious in the way we take this tournament".

Argentina's head coach Santiago Phelan was similarly positive.

"We are happy, not about the performance of our players, because we know that we have to improve a lot of things, but with the attitude, and when players give 100 percent as they have, it is pretty important for us," he felt.

"We will try to improve next week to keep on growing in our game and playing against the South African team [next week] is the best way."

Phelan believed there were specific aspects of his team's performance that needed focus.

They had conceded too many penalties in the first half, had given away turnovers which the Springboks had converted into points, and their inability to relieve pressure by getting out of their 22 and gaining better field position, had been costly.  

He had been satisfied with his team's set piece performance, with both scrums and line-outs good, and for the most part defence had been solid.

The team had worked hard on their defence. It was an aspect of the game that came naturally to Argentinian teams, he believed, and they appreciated that defence would be crucial in this competition.

The players' attitude on defence had been very good, to the extent that they had a few times been so over-eager on defence that they had conceded penalties. They would need greater control of their discipline on defence. Conceding fewer turnovers would also be crucial.

Asked his goals for the Rugby Championship competition as a whole, Phelan commented: "Our first goal is to grow up in our rugby, to improve by playing against the best teams in the world, game by game."

The first step was to play the best rugby they could in their back-to-back matches against the Springboks, and after that the tour to New Zealand and Australia. The players would "grow up" by playing in this sort of tournament and in this level of intensity.

By Len Kaplan, at Newlands