Springbok captain Siya Kolisi is back training with the national team and there is the prospect of letting him loose against Wales on Saturday, but he won’t play a full 80 minutes from the get-go.
Bok assistant coach Daan Human is a happy man that Kolisi packed down during the scrums in the sessions he had with the team. He also took contact, which is a good sign for the world champions.
South Africa face Wales (4.15pm kickoff) this weekend in Cardiff in their second-last warm-up match ahead of their World Cup opener against Scotland in Marseilles on 10 September.
If Kolisi gets the all-clear to be selected for both warm-up matches in Europe, Saturday will be his first match back since sustaining a knee injury playing for the Sharks in April. The Boks will face New Zealand at Twickenham next Friday in their final friendly before they head to France.
“Siya trained fully with us last week, but you won’t have him playing for 80 minutes in his comeback,” scrum coach Human said.
“But I do think Siya is in a good place. He took all the contact (in training) and scrummed with us and gave his all, as expected. That is important for me.
“So, in my department, I am happy with what I’ve seen so far. Hopefully, he can contribute massively. If not this weekend, then maybe next weekend. We never know when he will be let loose.
“I think he is one of those dogs you want (on the field) when he is let loose.”
Human expects a fiercely-contested match against Wales after the Dragons pushed England to the limits in their past two Test matches.
The Welsh toppled the English spectacularly in the first one, while they narrowly lost out at the weekend.
Normally it’s a dog fight between the Boks and Wales, and the world champions would want nothing more in their first European Test of the year. In the last six Tests in Wales since 2014, the home team have won five of the match-ups, with the Boks winning the most recent one in 2021.
“We were impressed by their whole team’s performance (against England). Last week they had a good result, and maybe this week too. They came very close to (winning),” Human said.
“Teams coached by Warren Gatland (Wales coach) are always tough to play. They are well prepared. There are no specific players we look at, but we look at them as a team.
“We’ve only won once over the last four or five times, and they will definitely use that as motivation. It’s really an arm wrestle against them. Like in the World Cup semi-final (2019), we only got it right in the last minutes when we got a penalty and beat them 19-16.
“It’s going to be a well-coached team, and they will be well-prepared. We will definitely have to pitch up if
we want good results.”
Human added that the team will not look too far into the World Cup yet, but rather into their training sessions ahead of the Wales match.
The Bok management also does not want players to hold back anything in the next two warm-up matches to spare themselves.
“There are a lot of injuries happening at the moment if you look at other countries. The French team just lost Ntamack (Romain), who is actually their first-choice flyhalf. So it (injuries) does happen and will have an influence,” Human said.
“But these are games that should be played in preparation for the World Cup.
“We should not fear going into them. We have a good group with players that can come in.”
Coach Jacques Nienaber will announce his team to play Wales today.