The Springboks are poised to kick off their preparations for the 2023 season with their first training camp of the year, which will be held in Cape Town from Sunday, February 19 to Friday, March 10.
The Boks’ first team practice in 2023 will only feature 14 players as they prepare for the September and October 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. The players are all of national importance and haven’t participated in the United Rugby Championship (URC) in the past few weeks.
The camp will include multiple off-field alignment sessions in addition to on-field training sessions to get the players physically and rugby-wise ready for the rest of the season.
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For the final rounds of the URC and Champions Cup competitions, the players will return to their home franchises. Coach Jacques Nienaber of the Springboks said, “We are excited to start this critical season, especially with a small core of players as we look forward to the Rugby World Cup in less than seven months.
The next three weeks will be critical to making sure that all of these players return to full-out rugby as successfully as possible and to get everyone in line with our processes in preparation for the World Cup year. All of these players have just completed an important resting break.
On Sunday, September 10, we will play Scotland in our first Rugby World Cup match, so we must make the most of every day we have with the players.
In order to bring the squad to peak at the appropriate time and achieve the necessary results in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, our World Cup warm-up games, and at the international extravaganza as we defend our championship, player management will be especially crucial this season.
Rassie Erasmus, the director of rugby for South Africa, agreed with Nienaber. With the World Cup in mind, this is a big year for the team, and we can’t wait to get back into the action,” he remarked.
We now only have a small group of players accessible to work with due to the Vodacom URC being active, but we are aware from prior experience that every minute spent working with the players both on and off the field counts during a World Cup year.
As we start this crucial year for the team and the nation, I would want to thank the franchisees for their cooperation and support in making sure that some of our key players could obtain the physical and emotional rest they required.
I also want to express my gratitude to MyPlayers for helping the players get a rest. Beginning their 2023 Test season, South Africa will play Australia in a Rugby Championship match on July 8 in Pretoria.
That will be followed by an encounter against New Zealand at the Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland a week later and Argentina in Johannesburg on Saturday, July 29, in their last fixture on home soil before they start the build-up to the defence of their Rugby World Cup championship.
In August, the Boks fly to Buenos Aires to face Los Pumas before they take on Wales and the All Blacks TV in Rugby World Cup warm-up games in Cardiff and London, respectively. That will bring their World Cup preparations to a close before they head to France for the global showpiece.
The quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup will take place on the weekend of October 14–15, followed by the semifinals on October 20–21, and the championship game on October 28.
Springboks competitions in 2023
Rugby Championship:
Saturday, July 8 Springboks v Australia (Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria)
Saturday, July 15 Springboks v New Zealand (Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland)
Saturday, July 29 Springboks v Argentina (Emirates Airline Park, Johannesburg)
