South Africa's head coach, Jacques Nienaber, has placed his faith in the unconventional half-back pairing of Manie Libbok and Cobus Reinach.
South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber said he believed his surprise starting half-backs of Manie Libbok and Cobus Reinach are the best men for orchestrating the defeat of hosts France in Sunday’sFly-half Libbok and scrum-half Reinach have been preferred to 2019 World Cup winning duo Handre Pollard and Faf de Klerk respectively.Pollard, who scored 22 points in the 32-12 victory over England in 2019, and De Klerk are both on the bench.
“If you look at a guy like Cobus he’s been playing exceptional rugby and Faf for that matter,” Nienaber told reporters on Friday after unveiling his matchday squad.“The French have got a very interesting kicking game that they use and we feel using those two guys will give us the best opportunity on Sunday,” he added.
“If you look at cumulative numbers that Handre has been playing, it’s probably one game for us this year,” Nienaber said.“I think we’ve lost one game with Manie starting at 10, the team performs when he’s the starting fly-half,” he added.A weakness of Libbok’s game is his goal-kicking having wasted crucial chances in September’s pool stage 13-8 defeat to Ireland.“When you play in a knockout you’re not going to get a lot of opportunities and you have to take those opportunities.
“For this specific game we feel Duane is the guy that we will need but that doesn’t mean Jasper won’t play in the semi-final,” Nienaber said.Nienaber has named five forwards and three backs on his bench, a more balanced selection than the 7-1 he deployed for the Irish match.“When we went seven-one people said it was a risk.“But you do mitigate that risk with multiple players being able to cover multiple positions,” he added.
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