Springboks boss addresses ‘match-fixing’ concerns ahead of Ireland v Scotland clash

South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber says that he “hopes” Ireland and Scotland will not resort to match-fixing in their final Pool B match this weekend.

The Springboks have played all their group games and currently reside at the summit on 15 points following their victory over Tonga on Sunday.

That 49-18 triumph over ‘Ikale Tahi in the Rugby World Cup took them above Ireland in the standings, with the Scots a place further back.

How the Boks can miss out

It will likely be a straight shootout between those two Six Nations outfits for who qualifies alongside South Africa, but there is a scenario where the Boks miss out.

Should Scotland beat Andy Farrell’s men with a try bonus-point and with enough of a gap to overturn the Springboks’ points difference, that would take them through as group winners.

But if the Irishmen also take home a try bonus-point, that would also put them on 15 points and they would finish above Nienaber’s charges due to their 13-8 victory in Paris.

“I think between ourselves, Ireland and Scotland, everybody can still miss out on the quarter-finals, every single team, all three of those teams, but all three can also still make it so the pool will only be decided on Saturday,” the head coach said.

“Could I believe in a scenario that they will decide ‘do we want to get this amount of points and then get South Africa out of the way?’ That would probably be match-fixing, I would say. I hope not.

“Rugby is clean. We wear those t-shirts so hopefully not because that would be extremely disappointing.”

Should the Springboks get through, they will have a two-week break until their quarter-final clash.

That could be a benefit, giving them extra time to recover, or put them at a disadvantage, with their last-eight opponents more match ready, but Nienaber sees similarities to their title-winning campaign of four years ago.

“The positive is it is pretty much similar to what we experienced in 2019 when we also finished our pool quite early,” he said.

“I think we had a 12-13 day preparation break before we went into our quarter-final against Japan. It is something we have done before as a group. It worked out well for us back then so we’ll give them two-three days off and then start preparing.

“Until we know what the outcome is of the pool and who we will face, the France New Zealand pool will only be determined on Friday night so we will only actually know, depending on how [Pool B] finish, we will have a good idea of who we will play.

“I think in the first week now, give the guys some time off to get away from the game, to have a little bit of a mental break and then start focusing on what we can do better. So internally focusing on us on things we must improve if we want to stay in this competition until the end.”

Handre Pollard’s return

Fly-half Handre Pollard was a key part of their success four years ago and he played his first match of the 2023 tournament on Sunday.

Pollard was an injury replacement for hooker Malcolm Marx and was impressive in his first Test appearance in over 13 months.

He will now challenge Manie Libbok for a place in the XV for the quarter-final clash, providing they qualify.

“Handre, the important part is he had 30 minutes at Premiership Cup level, which is a little bit below international [level]. Tonight he got 50 minutes against a proper Tonga side that has got better as the tournament has gone on. They are a team who will just improve the more they play tier-one nations,” Nienaber added.

“They have some top players that have played for New Zealand, Australia. Some of them play for the Crusaders, Toulouse, so they know what rugby is about.

“He got a proper Test match against that. He got through 50 minutes.

“I think he will just get better. I think he was solid. You look at his ball carries – that was decisive and good. His defence, I thought his level changed well and he put some proper shoulder hits in.

“I thought his off-the-ball work was good and his kicking game in general was good. The fundamentals [for which] we wanted him to tick the boxes, I think he ticked tonight.”

READ MORE: Springboks v Tonga: Five takeaways from a Rugby World Cup game filled with pride and respect