All Blacks wary of Brussow's influence
The Cheetahs flank makes his return to the Bok setup for the first time under coach Heyneke Meyer and slots into the starting XV at openside flank.
He directly replaces Marcell Coetzee, who picked up a knee injury in the Boks 24-20 loss to Australia last weekend. Brussow will certainly pick up where Coetzee left off in the pilfering department, but his height means that Boks are at a slight disadvantage at the lineouts.
Nevertheless Hansen rates the Cheetahs openside highly, and expects him to be a handful at ruck time.
“It may provide an opportunity at lineout time but I think it does pose a big threat at the breakdown and that will be why Heyneke has selected him I suppose. He’s got a game plan in mind that he wants to play and he wants two guys on the park that can be effective at the breakdown and put pressure on us. You get a bit of an understanding of how he wants to play the game,” Hansen said on Thursday.
A big talking point in the lead up to the Test match at Emirates Airlines Park has been the driving maul. The All Blacks were found wanting in that department last weekend, but Hansen believes his side still has the ability to use the set piece to their advantage.
“We’re not too bad at it either. I think people might have mistaken what I was saying last week. There were three tries scored from rolling mauls last week, but is that the game we want? It’s becoming one of the most predominant ways to score tries but if you’re looking at the future of the game, you want people to come and watch,” the All Blacks boss said.
“Do people want to come and watch that? I don’t know; some will, especially former tight forwards because they love it. But it’s an art too; you’ve got to be good at it to be able to do it and good at it to stop it. Last week we were way too high and gave Argentina too much room and they were successful at it.”
“But don’t be thinking that I’m saying we shouldn’t have rolling mauls, I think it should be a little bit more of an even contest. The charter says everything has to be contestable. My bugbear with the maul is that it’s not contestable, it’s not a fair contest and everyone including ourselves is taking advantage of it. It is what it is, and I’m sure SA will have a crack at us because we showed vulnerability there last week. Hopefully we fixed that vulnerability but we’ll see on Saturday.”
Both backlines feature fairly inexperienced campaigners which should make for an interesting battle outwide. Hansen has selected Highlanders flyhalf Lima Sopoaga to start in Dan Carter’s absence and it could be a baptism of fire for the debutante.
Meanwhile the Bok backline is unchanged save for Cornal Hendricks replacing JP Pietersen on the right wing. Handre Pollard, Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel make up a very inexperienced 10-12-13 combination at Test level. Neverthelss Hansen rates all three players as highly skilled footballers.
“They haven’t had a lot of Test matches but they are certainly three very good athletes. The boy (Kriel) who’s moved in from fullback, he looked really good last week, he’s got some gas. His partner (De Allende) is a big strong boy and Pollard looks like he really could be something special as time goes on. I think they’ll look to grow that combo over time,” Hansen said.
“Hopefully Jean’s back, it will great to see him back from his injury and I know he’s worked really hard. But once there’s a change in the guard there I’d say those three young men will be there for some time. They’ve got a great backup in wee Lambie too; he brings something else to the game so they’ve got a bit of depth there.”
The Boks face the All Blacks at 17h05 on Saturday.
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