After losing their opening Rugby World Cup Pool B match to New Zealand last weekend South Africa return the action with what should be a straight forward assignment against Namibia at the City of Toyota Stadium on Saturday.
South Africa v Namibia, Saturday 28th September, City of Toyota, KO 11:45 (South African time)
Weather Forecast – City of Toyota Stadium
Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistant referees: Nic Berry (Australia), Andrew Brace (Ireland)
TMO: Graham Hughes (England)
South Africa
The Boks went down 23-13 to the All Blacks in Yokohama last Saturday. There was a degree of confidence among punters for South Africa to at least stay within the +6.5 point handicap allocated by the bookmakers. Despite starting well and missing an opportunity to go 6-0 up the damage was done in a short spell of the opening half. The All Blacks capitalized on a loose pass midway through the first half and once they had restored parity they quickly surged into a 17-3 lead which eventually proved more than adequate. In addition to Pieter-Steph du Toit 's second half try there were other opportunities for the Boks to further reduce the deficit but in the end they came away empty handed.
Trevor Nyakane was injured against the All Blacks and will play no further part in the tournament and Thomas du Toit has been called up as his replacement. South Africa are expected to give game time to squad members who were not involved last weekend and after this they take on Italy, the most realistic threat to their progression from this pool before they clash with Canada. Assuming those games go to form right now it looks as though Ireland would be the most likely opponents in the first knockout round.
Despite losing to the All Blacks the betting as far as South Africa's overall chances are concerned is largely unchanged at 9/2 to win the tournament, 8/13 to reach the semi final and 13/8 to reach the final.
Namibia
Namibia opened their campaign against Italy on Sunday, a game they lost 47-22. They were 30 point underdogs for that match so the plus handicap was the way to go and Namibia scored 3 try's through Stevens, Greyling and Plato including the first and last 5 pointers of the game. Italy led 21-7 at half time but Namibia won many admirers for the way they went about their task.
Namibia have yet to win a match at the RWC finals in five previous appearances although they came very close in 2015 when they went down 17-16 to Georgia.
Line Ups
South Africa: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Sbu Nkosi, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Frans Steyn, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Elton Jantjies, 9 Herschel Jantjies, 8 Schalk Brits (c), 7 Kwagga Smith, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 RG Snyman, 3 Vincent Koch, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Tendai Mtawarira
Replacements: 16 Steven Kitshoff, 17 Thomas du Toit, 18 Eben Etzebeth, 19 Siya Kolisi, 20 Franco Mostert, 21 Cobus Reinach, 22 Damian de Allende, 23 Cheslin Kolbe
Namibia: 15 Johan Tromp, 14 Chad Plato, 13 JC Greyling, 12 Peter John Walters, 11 Lesley Klim, 10 Cliven Loubser, 9 Eugene Jantjies, 8 Adriaan Booysen, 7 Muharua Katjijeko, 6 Thomasau Forbes, 5 Tjiuee Uanivi (c), 4 Johan Retief, 3 AJ de Klerk, 2 Louis van der Westhuizen, 1 Desiderius Sethie
Replacements: 16 Obert Nortje, 17 Andre Rademeyer, 18 Johannes Coetzee, 19 Prince Gaoseb, 20 Janco Venter, 21 Wian Conradie, 22 Helarius Axasman Kisting, 23 Johan Deysel
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Head to Head
The teams have met twice before and the Boks won both games as they pleased.
In RWC 2011 the Springboks scored 13 tries in an 87-0 victory (half time 31-0)
A one off test in Cape Town in 2007 saw the Boks win 105-13.
Betting – Handicap
South Africa -58.5 points at 9/10
Namibia +58.5 points at 9/10
Quotes are an average of what was on offer from a selection of bookmakers at the time of writing and are subject to change.
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Betting Angle
This handicap is very high but at the same time I cannot back this Namibia team with any confidence. Both sides have made changes but the depth in SA rugby is far greater and it will surely be one way traffic.
This is a game where I will restrict my interest to some speculative try scorer plays
Bet: H Jantjies to score at least 2 tries at 1.38/1 at Sunbet – the lad loves the tryline and should have plenty of opportunities
Bet: Nkosi to score at least 3 tries at 9/4 at Sunbet – he will be itching to go and I think he will have a field day
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