Giteau went looking for a Springboks weakness on the KOKO Show and found none. Adam Ashley-Cooper explained how a back looks for one, and where the edge opens.
“It’s hard to find a weak link in their game.”
Matt Giteau, 103 Tests for Australia, said it on Monday’s KOKO Show, two days after South Africa beat New Zealand 43-28 in Baltimore to take Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 3-1, and before his old team meet them in Perth on 27 September.
Adam Ashley-Cooper, 121 Tests on the wing and in the centres, then described how to beat the Springboks the way a professional actually starts: by looking for a man.
“Obviously when you’re previewing teams, it might be someone under the high ball or might be someone’s inside shoulder in defence. You know, there’s always a target or an opportunity to attack.”
He went through the list. He found one place, and it is not a person. It went past in the middle of a sentence: “They open up the edge for attacking teams. If you’re good enough to get to there, that’s fair play.”
So is the edge a Springboks weakness, or the door they leave open on purpose?
The method: a man under the high ball, or an inside shoulder
Every preview a back sits through starts with those two questions, and Ashley-Cooper gave the full version.
“What is it with the Springboks, you know, like set piece is dominant. Defensively across the board, they’re strong. They’ve got a little bit of line speed. They open up the edge for attacking teams. If you’re good enough to get to there, that’s fair play. But their attack, the D, their power, their carries are dominant.”
The inside shoulder is the one nearest the ruck. A defender who turns his hips out to chase the ball across the field shows it, and the carrier runs straight at it, because a man facing sideways cannot tackle forwards.
A back three man who mistimes a high ball is the other target: kick to him three times and the fourth one is a try.
South Africa, on his list, give up neither.
Baltimore gave New Zealand nothing in the air
Drew Mitchell, 71 Tests, started where the excuses start, with the casualty list: “the injuries from game three really hurt the All Blacks with Ardie [Savea], Jacobson, Quinn Tupaea as well.” Then he overruled himself.
“But I mean the intensity that the Boks play at, they just keep coming at you and not just the intensity but like they’re very clinical. Their high ball game on the weekend I was really impressed with… even when they kicked receipt they weren’t able to get into it cuz they were just so so good under the high ball contestable.”
The receipt line is the one that matters. New Zealand could not get into the game even from their own kick returns, because every contestable kick came back with a green jersey under it. And that was without Cheslin Kolbe, out with a fractured jaw.
The site’s Baltimore ratings have Damian Willemse fielding the first restart on 5 and winning his own high kick on 32, which is the target closing before the game has settled.
The old plan was to tire them out. The bench ended it
James Rochford, the host, asked the question every Wallabies fan has asked since 2019. Nobody goes 80 minutes with them. How do you?
Giteau’s answer explained why the old answer died.
“That’s why they’re number one… Rassie’s created so much depth… Usually when we were playing it’s like, you know, you tire them out and then we’ll wear them out because they’re bigger bodies. You just got to hang in there for a moment. Whereas the people coming off the bench are as good as the starters, but they’re fresh. So it’s a harder challenge.”
Hang in there, then run the big bodies around at 60. For a generation that plan assumed the men coming on were worse than the men going off.
In Baltimore the four changes came on 44 and South Africa scored 26 of the last 40 points. The bench had stopped winning the last quarter at Ellis Park and Cape Town. It has started again.
Giteau went further, to the part no session plan fixes: “Every player, it seems, when they play for the Springboks gains a level of confidence, almost like they know that they’re going to wear the teams down, and everyone comes on with such clarity.”
The best team in the world from kickoff
Ashley-Cooper answered the same question from the other end of the match.
“There’s no better team in the world, and has been for a long, long time, than from kickoff than South Africa… And you got to wear that for 10, 15, 20 minutes until they start to fatigue.”
Then the part that is a plan rather than a description.
“To answer your question, like the boys said, keeping the ball in play, running the big boys around to create that fatigue to open up the spaces. You got to back your fitness, your work rate and your resilience.”
The first quarter after kickoff is when a heavier pack carries at full power, before the legs go. Which is why the Baltimore comms failure, eight minutes fifty-three of nothing in the first half, bothered the panel more than it bothered the losing coach. Dave Rennie said the stoppage cost his side no momentum.
Ashley-Cooper finished the thought. “That 10-minute break at 20 minutes, like you’re facing an All Blacks, sorry, you’re facing a Springboks off kickoff again. You know, like if I’m an All Black player, I’m like, ‘Okay, well, back to the drawing board.'”
Perth will not hand anyone that reset.
The door: the edge, and who they think they’ve got
So back to the edge. Ashley-Cooper gave it one clause in the middle of a list of things South Africa do well, and then moved on.
Giteau said how.
“There’s still areas that you can attack on them because with their line speed, there are seams where they just shoot up and you can create confusion with who they think they’ve got… So there are opportunities, but there’s just not many against them.”
Line speed compresses the middle. When the inside defenders shoot, the man outside them has a step to decide: carrier or receiver. If two of them pick the same man, a seam opens.
The ball has to beat the line to reach it. A flat pass in front of the shooter does that. So does a kick in behind him. Width on its own does not.
Damian McKenzie found one in Baltimore and, in Giteau’s telling, could have made it a one-score game: “if he was passing outside… they might have recycled it and potentially scored. They’re only eight behind then.” Then Kurt-Lee Arendse went the length of the field off a spill and it was over.
Read also: Kieran Read thinks Australia are matched up better to South Africa than New Zealand were, because a physical stalemate against the Springboks stays a stalemate.
How to beat the Springboks in Perth: before the bench
The door is real, and it is on the edge. It is also open for a reason. South Africa would rather give a winger a one-on-one thirty metres out than give a ball carrier an inside shoulder five metres out. The second one is a try. The first one is usually a tackle.
That puts a clock on it. The edge is reachable while the shooters are shooting, which is the first forty minutes, with the starting pack on the field and the ball in play. After 44 the bench arrives, the line resets, and Giteau’s “not many” becomes none.
Australia have already broken that clock. At Ellis Park on 16 August 2025 they went 22-0 down inside seventeen minutes, then scored six unanswered tries to win 38-22, taking the lead on 64. Seven days later in Cape Town they lost 30-22 and still outscored South Africa after the break.
Thirteen months ago, twice, the last half hour belonged to the Wallabies.
So the honest version is narrower. The edge is the opening Ashley-Cooper named, and the first forty is when it is widest. Ellis Park is the proof it is not the only one.
Nick Mallett says movement rugby will not beat them. For the last half hour that is just true. For the first forty it is a coach’s preference dressed as a law.
How to beat the Springboks, then, is a question about the first forty minutes. Perth is won before the bench, or it needs the comeback Australia produced at Ellis Park.
Read next: Dan Biggar said New Zealand played the better rugby, and the Springboks record since 2019 explains why they won anyway, which is the same argument from the other end of the series.
Your turn: weakness or design
Two ways to read the edge. Either line speed is worth the risk, and a winger in space is a tackle they back themselves to make. Or it is the one place on the field where a green jersey is on his own. One is a plan.
One is a weak link. Which one did Baltimore show?
Frequently asked
Is there a weak link in the Springboks team?
Matt Giteau said on the KOKO Show that it is hard to find one. Adam Ashley-Cooper listed the usual targets, a man under the high ball or an inside shoulder in defence, and said South Africa give up neither. The one opening he named is the edge, which their line speed leaves open for a side good enough to reach it.
What did Adam Ashley-Cooper say about beating the Springboks?
That they are the best team in the world from kickoff and have been for a long time, that you have to wear that for the first 10 to 20 minutes, and that the only way through is keeping the ball in play to create fatigue and back your fitness and work rate.
How did the Springboks beat the All Blacks in Baltimore?
South Africa won 43-28 from 17-14 at half-time to take Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 3-1. Four bench changes came on 44 and the score from there was 26-14 to South Africa. Kurt-Lee Arendse scored from his own half on 72 and Cameron Hanekom off a turnover on 78.
