South Africa’s outstanding backrow forward Joe van Niekerk admitted he was having sleepless nights ahead of the do-or-die Pool C match with Samoa on Saturday but said it would not deter him from playing his best on the day.
The 23-year-old 2002 South African player of the year said he thought all the hard work the squad had put together over three months going to waste with a defeat on Saturday was unimaginable.
”We’re getting to a stage where there’s more at stake, there’s more pressure going into the games. You lose a game, you’re basically gone, so we’ve got to get all our details together and take it forward.
”So there’s more pressure on the player, but that’s the kind of things a player wants, he wants the pressure, he wants to play games like that.
”There’ve been nights where I haven’t actually slept that well because things have been running on my mind.
”It’s do or die and we don’t want to go home.”
Van Niekerk has bounced back from a serious groin injury that restricted him to just two appearances in the Tri Nations tournament to shine in the creditable defeat by England and said he will do everything in his power to help out another young hope of Springbok rugby, fly-half Derick Hougaard.
The 20-year-old was chosen ahead of the more experienced Louis Koen after the latter had a shocker against the English, missing most of his penalties, and his blocked clearance led to the only try of the match.
”We’ve got a great running and a great kicking fly-half all in one, so we can change our game plan on the day,” said the newly signed Western Province star.
”It goes from number one to number eight, the more pressure we’ll exert on them [Samoans] in the forwards, the less pressure he’s gonna feel at 10, and the better balls he gets from nine and so on.
”If we’re not doing our job he’s going to feel the pressure.”
Van Niekerk expected a far stiffer challenge this time round from when he scored a try against the two-time World Cup quarterfinalists last year in a 60-18 thrashing in Pretoria, particularly after he saw them give England a scare in Sunday’s 35-22 defeat.
”I think the Samoans have come a long way.
”Their preparation for the World Cup has been a hell of a lot better than what it was for the Test last year.
”It makes it a totally different Test match this time around, it is the World Cup, the biggest stage, more at stake so I definitely think it will be a much, much tighter game.”
While Van Niekerk acknowledged the Samoans would be even more formidable had they been able to call on the majority of their English-based players, he said the present squad had already shown they were no shrinking violets.
”The thing is they’ve shown they can produce the rugby. They played very well against England, if not should have beaten England on the day.”
While Van Niekerk waits nervously for the match his stress has been allayed by the arrival of his girlfriend.
”I’m quite lucky my girlfriend has come up, so I’ll get to see her and maybe spend a bit of time with her this week, we don’t really see our girlfriends that often.”
Van Niekerk will be hoping much as he loves her that he won’t have an extra week off to spend time with her back in South Africa next week. — Sapa-AFP