South Africa’s ‘bomb squad’ first became a big talking point in international rugby during their march to 2019 World Cup glory, when Rassie Erasmus – then the head coach of the Springboks – got in the habit of selecting a six-two split between forwards and backs on his bench in order to maintain a level of physical output up front which opponents simply could not live with.
Over time, the phrase became shorthand for the Springbok strategy of swapping their whole front-row at half-time or early in the second-half of games as a simple but ingenuous way of taking advantage of the traditional South African strength of being able to produce mountainous forwards at a rate no other nation on the planet can hope to match.
Last Friday night, Jacques Nienaber – Erasmus’ successor as head coach – took the strategy to the next level, responding to the late call-off of replacement utility-back Willie Le Roux by bringing back-rower Kwagga Smith into his match-day 23, meaning a seven-one split on the bench for his team’s final World Cup warm-up match against New Zealand at Twickenham.
It was a bold move which delivered exactly as their coach would have hoped. Having raced into a 21-0 lead early in the second-half, Nienaber emptied his bench with 33 minutes to play and killed off any faint hope New Zealand – already reduced to 14-men by the red-carding of Scott Barrett – had of staging a comeback
The Sprinboks went on to score two more converted tries before a late Cam Roigard score provided scant consolation to the decimated All Blacks. The final scoreline of 35-7 shook world rugby to its core.
New Zealand simly don’t lose games by that margin. It is not an unusual occurrence – it is completely unprecedented. Twice during their 120-year history of playing Test match rugby, the All Blacks have lost by 21 points – both times to Australia in 1999 and 2019 – but this was a far more one-sided contest than either of those games.
It was an awesome spectacle for the neutral, but enough to strike fear into the hearts all Scottish rugby fans, who are only too well aware that they must face the reigning champions – who look a far more complete team now than they did in Japan four years ago – first up in this year’s tournament, in Marseilles a week on Sunday [10th September].
It is a daunting prospect, but Javan Sebastian – who hopes to be part of Scotland’s own ‘bomb squad’ for that match – insists that nothing that happened on Friday night has dissuaded the underdogs of their ability to cause an upset.
“The impact our bench has made over the past couple of weeks has been quite impressive, and we one hundred per cent know that is going to be crucial against South Africa,” said the tight-head prop, who has impressed as a replacement in three of Scotland’s four warm-up matches this summer. “When we go on, all Gregor asks from us is speed and to play with intent, and that’s what boys have shown.
“Us boys have all the belief in the world that we can beat the number one team in the world,” he added. “We won’t back down to anybody. They are only human. They can be beaten by anyone on any given day. They’ve got a very big forward pack, so if you meet them physically up front, you stand a chance of putting in a good fight against them.
“The Georgians are big, strong men as well, and we fronted up quite well against them at the weekend, especially in the set-piece. They are known for their scrum and line-out and I think we nullified them at source. So, that was good and we’ll look to build on that against South Africa.”
Zander Fagerson is expected to start at tight-head prop against South Africa, despite his recent suspension leaving the Glasgow Warriors man desperately short of recent game-time (he’s managed just 50 minutes since mid-May).
That means it is likely to be a shoot-out between 37-year-old veteran WP Nel (who started Scotland’s final two warm-up matches) and the 28-year-old Sebastian for the back-up spot. The younger man – who is yet to start in his six caps for Scotland so far – was an outsider to even make the World Cup squad at the beginning of the summer, but isn't going to be content just making the plane to France, he wants to be in heart of the action.
“I think I did alright off the bench again against Georgia and put my hand up for selection for that first game,” he concluded. “I’ve just got to wait and see – and keep training hard.”
