All Blacks loose-forward Ardie Savea says words like “warm-ups” and “friendlies” aren’t in their vocabulary when it comes to Test-match rugby.
Getting ready to face big rivals South Africa in a World Cup warm-up match at Twickenham on Friday, Savea tells New Zealand Rugby’s website: “It’s not part of our vocabulary at the moment. We want to go out there firing and banging.
“For me, every Test is hard, and that’s just internal gut feel I put upon myself, and the standard in every game is hard and tough and you want to get prepared for that and playing this game against South Africa leading up to what is next is important.”
Jacques Nienaber has made a number of tweaks to the #Springboks team to face New Zealand in London on Friday night - more here: https://t.co/d80qSCzaVG 🤩#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/XVgnR2cTbk
— Springboks (@Springboks) August 21, 2023
New Zealand face hosts France in their first match of the World Cup on September 8.
But Savea is just focused on the Springboks for now, saying: “They [South Africa] pose a massive threat around their physicality, their threats around the breakdown, so we’ve got to nail our structures, our game plan and be ready for things that go our way.”