The Springbok Women unexpectedly found themselves at the home of Scottish rugby on Tuesday, when their planned training session against Scotland Women was moved to the iconic setting of Murrayfield Stadium.
The sessions against the hosts went as well as they had hoped for, said Springbok Women assistant coach Franzel September, confirming that the switch of venue was a nice bonus as the team concluded the Scotland leg of their tour.
They depart for Wales on Wednesday, where another training session against the Welsh Women will take place in Swansea on Saturday before Test matches against Spain in Valladolid on 23 March and the USA in London on 30 March.
“The players were pleasantly surprised when they heard that the training would take place at Murrayfield and they really enjoyed the experience,” said September.
“It is such a wonderful stadium and setting and it was great to train against Scotland at this venue.”
The day consisted of unit sessions between the two packs and sets of backlines before the teams shared lunch, with two 20-minute chukkas concluding the day.
“We needed this as our last match was in last year’s WXV,” said September.
“You can only train against yourself so many times and we needed this opposed training session. It went well, we did some good things and there were a couple of errors.
“They are a top 10-ranked team in the world, so they were always going to test our systems and that is exactly what we wanted from this. There were times when we were under pressure, but we also managed to turn that around and apply good pressure ourselves, so that was pleasing.”
September lamented some of the decision-making options by the Bok Women: “We did make wrong decisions at times and that is something we will need to improve on in our next session against Wales on Saturday.
“We cannot go into the Tests against Spain and USA without addressing those issues, and that is why we were grateful that it showed up today,” he said before adding that the trip has already proved valuable.
“Our players got a taste of the pace of a top 10 team in conditions that were taxing, so it was a good start to the tour. We want to thank our Scottish counterparts for a very productive outing.”
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