Sbu Nkosi: Boks ‘don’t need to go back to the drawing board’ after Wallabies loss

CAPE TOWN – Springbok wing Sbu Nkosi says they ‘don’t need to go back to the drawing board’ following their 26-28 Rugby Championship defeat to Australia in Gold Coast on Sunday.

The Boks produced a disappointing outing, with their discipline proving particularly damaging.

They conceded 11 penalties, which opened the door for Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper to punish them with the boot as he kicked 23 points in his first appearance for Australia since 2017.

Speaking after the game, Nkosi said they don’t need to change their plan ahead of next weekend’s clash. Their execution, however, needs to be sharper, the World Cup-winning speedster said.

“I am putting it down to execution. I don’t think we have to go back to the drawing board and change anything. We have got a solid plan that turned us into world champions. We are still learning and growing.

“We are still going to grow that extra leg that gives us that ruthlessness to put teams away. I don’t think there is a whole lot of thinking to do, we just need to execute better. Our game plan has given us a lot of success, so we should keep to that.

While the Boks didn’t have the upper hand at the scrum, they got good return from their maul, with Bongi Mbonami getting their opening try and replacement hooker Malcolm Marx adding two more later in the game.

When asked if he reckons they need to come up with a 'Plan B' when things don't go their way on the field, Nkosi explained: “It’s hard to say our Plan A didn’t work, we did score three maul tries. It is our discipline that lost us the game, so I wouldn’t say we needed a Plan B on attack, a maul is an attacking set-piece and we scored three tries from that.”

@WynonaLouw