In their last Pool C game on Saturday in New Zealand against World Cup favorites England, the Springbok Women’s team will not go down without a fight.
Few would contest that England are clear favorites, and even Springbok Women forwards coach Eddie Myners does not contest that.
When we prepared our campaign, we did target the Fiji game for a victory, and we hoped to at least get a bonus point from the games against France and England, according to Myners.
“It is terrible that things haven’t worked out for us, but we still have one more shot. To advance to the next round, we must now defeat England. Stranger things have occurred, and we will definitely not give up easily.
The match against the Red Roses was scheduled months in advance, and preparations were made for this match; in fact, the South Africans even trained against the English twice while on tour in Europe in November of last year.
Yes, we did face them twice in training, and it was obvious at the time that we needed to be much more alert the next year, according to Myners.
Since then, we’ve improved on both our performance and attitude. We had been anticipating this fixture for some time.
“At this World Cup, we want to compare ourselves to the greatest, and England is the best.” Why should we be discouraged if being compared against the finest squad in the world was precisely what each individual desired?
Hooker Lindelwa Gwala won’t be playing in the match, according to the coach, who also said that the lineup would be revealed on Thursday morning.
She is hurt, which is unfortunate since she was playing pretty well for us. Although we will undoubtedly miss her in the scrums, this injury provides the next player a chance to shine, the coach remarked.
“Of course, we thought through our strategy for taking on England and the players we would need for the game.
Our team consists of 32 players, some of whom have yet to play. 23 guys who are willing to give all they have and play as if it’s their final chance to represent the green and gold are what we need.