South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber says he would have liked to name his starting side to face Scotland even earlier after announcing his starting XV two days before it was expected.
The Springboks face the Scots in Marseille on Sunday in a mouthwatering and high-stakes start to both sides’ Pool B campaigns.
Scottish fans were caught off guard on Wednesday when Nienaber’s 23-man matchday squad was confirmed 48 hours before the scheduled team announcement date of Friday.
While it was widely read as a sign of confidence in the Springboks camp, the head coach insisted the timing of the announcement will have little impact on how things unfold on the pitch.
“We announce our team very early in the week. The players know on the Monday already and we would probably like to announce it on a Monday if we could, but unfortunately my personal programme on a Monday is just too busy,” Nienaber explained.
“We get it out as quickly as possible. We don’t believe that it has any bearing on people knowing the team or not knowing the team.
“If you look at [documentary] ‘Chasing the Sun’ of the last World Cup, I don’t think there’s people who don’t know how we operate in the Springbok environment. We are as transparent as we can be.”
This will be Nienaber’s first World Cup as head coach of the national team, but his third overall after being a part of the Springboks staff in 2011 and 2015.
“A World Cup always has a vibe,” he said. “When I was part of my first World Cup in 2011 in New Zealand, that’s the thing that blew me away, was the whole excitement from the fans and the people streaming into the towns where you’re going to play.
“When we walked back from training on Thursday, there were South Africans sitting here in front, cheering. It’s nice to see the support flocking in and getting ready for the match. World Cups are always incredible.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here