The Springboks will be targeting even more improvement before their opening game of the Rugby World Cup against Scotland in France.

The Boks put up their best performance of the year on Saturday with a convincing 35-7 win against the All Blacks at Twickenham in London.

Although the All Blacks were ill-disciplined and Scott Barett’s first half red card didn’t help their cause, the Boks were clinical in the record win.

The win over the All Blacks will certainly put the Springboks right up there to win the World Cup for a record fourth time and only the second team to successfully defend their time. That said, the World Cup is a beast of a different nature and slip ups can be very costly.

The Springbok coach, Jacques Nienaber, felt that they still left a lot of points on the park and that will be a big work on as they turn their attention fully to the World Cup.

“This was a proper test, and it was exactly what we wanted before the World Cup,” said Nienaber.

“Wales play a different style of rugby to New Zealand, who pride themselves on their high intensity and high tempo game, so it was good preparation for us.

“That said, we have hard work ahead before the World Cup. We had several opportunities to score tries which we didn’t convert, so we’ll zoom in on that in Corsica and hopefully we can improve on that before our opening match.”

The Springboks will open their World Cup title defence on 10 September against the Scottish in Marseille.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport