Birmingham – The Springboks are living in hope of not only beating Samoa but going on to win the Rugby World Cup according to hooker Bismarck du Plessis.
Their unshakable belief and hope in rectifying what went wrong in their shock and embarrassing loss to Japan emanates from some of sporting history’s recent triumphs against the odds by teams like Spain’s Fifa World Cup winning team of 2010 and the French team’s resilience at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
In winning the 2010 football World Cup, Spain suffered a shock defeat against Switzerland in an upset that shook the footballing world but the Spaniards went on to win the tournament.
While France didn’t win the Rugby World Cup title four years ago in New Zealand, they managed to pick themselves up from two pool matches defeat at the hands of the All Blacks and an unlikely loss against Tonga to lose narrowly to the All blacks in the final.
The same happened to England at the 2007 Rugby World Cup where they suffered a 36-0 loss to the Springboks and recovered well to qualify for the final where they narrowly lost to the Springboks.
It is these moments in sporting history that the Springboks will look to and find hope to overcome Samoa on Saturday at Villa Park and hopefully go on to make history by becoming the first team in Rugby World Cup history to win the tournament after having lost in the pool stages of the tournament.
“it was a really tough day for us on Saturday and an emotional one. We have to put that emotion aside now. The nice thing is that we have another chance this week. But if you look at history and the last two finalists also lost a game in the pool stages, France actually lost two games in the pool stages. If you look at the other World Cup in football where Spain lost their first game and they went on to win the tournament,” said Du Plessis.
The abrasive hooker, Du Plessis, says the Springboks will take plenty of heart from how those teams went about in defying the odds to do well in those respective tournaments.
“We have to take heart out of that because you can see that it has been done and it gives you hope. We want to hold on to that hope and we want to hold on to giving hope to our country,” Du Plessis added.
Known for his uncompromising aggression and overzealousness in the collision, Du Plessis doesn’t think that tempers will flare against Samoa on Saturday even though encounters between the two countries have been often marred by ill-discipline and several off-the-ball incidents.
“For us, we got to trust our process and what the coach wants us to do and execute that on the day. What they do we can’t control, we can only control what we do,” Du Plessis said.