Bok travel woes

The Boks were shaken out of their comfort zone when they were forced to catch an early morning flight to Edinburgh on Wednesday, only arriving at their hotel at 2am. Ag shame!

“I won’t sit here and say we’ve had the ideal preparation,” said Bok coach Jake White.

“It took us half the time to get from Shannon to Edinburgh that it took from Cape Town to Shannon.

“But we set this up and knew we’d have to travel a bit more than we usually do, that we’d have to show a bit more character and maybe get out of our comfort zone.

“Our group of players have to realise that we get spoiled now – we get very well looked after by British Airways.

“Our luggage is all booked through before we arrive at the airport, it’s all in our rooms waiting. So I think it’s good to go on a tour like this and see what life’s really like.

“Standing in a queue to book your own luggage in, when you haven’t showered for 11 hours, is different to what they’re used to.

“France is not going to be easy – we’ll have to travel by TGV (train) to different places.

“It was not pleasant and there were some players who took exception to getting to bed at 2am with no supper, but that’s good.

“We’re not going to say we’ve now got an excuse for playing poorly against Scotland.

“The players had time to recover after Namibia and have had time to prepare, and the game against Connacht probably provided our first-choice guys with a wake-up call, as they sat in the stands watching.

“This is as close as we can get to putting a team on the field that will be competitive.

“We watched Scotland’s game against Ireland and I was impressed. I thought the forward pack played outstandingly well in the beginning of the game.

“They obviously let it slip in the middle, and let Ireland come back at them – but I’m very impressed,” said the Bok coach