Esterhuizen: “Facing Scotland will be no walk in the park”

Esterhuizen backed up his statement saying their narrow 6-3 halftime lead in the team’s opening Rugby World Cup pool match in France last year showed how competitive Tests against the Scots can be and added that the team were bracing themselves for another challenging encounter this weekend.

“It’s certainly going to be a tough game,” said Esterhuizen.

“The match against them in the World Cup last year was not a walk in the park, as we saw at halftime, so it will be an intense battle. They’ll also make the breakdowns messy, but we are looking forward to facing them.”

The hard-running Hollywoodbets Sharks centre further supported his statement saying the margins between the top teams on the world rankings were very close: “Any team in the top 10 in the world can beat one another on the day, so the focus for us before each match is to try to be the best we can to get the desired results.”

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus will only announce his match-day squad for the clash on Friday, but Esterhuizen said should he be in the mix, it would be an intense midfield battle with the Scottish team boasting quality centres in the likes of captain Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones.

“They are strong centres and great individual players – I’ve watched many games where they tore up defences,” said Esterhuizen.

“I obviously played with Hugh when I was at Harlequins, and Tuipulotu is a hard runner and good ball carrier, so the midfield battle will be big.”

Looking back at his days at Harlequins when they faced the Glasgow Warriors – who were crowned the Vodacom United Rugby Championship winners last season – the powerful centre said although most of the players in Scotland’s national team were from the club, facing them at international level was a completely different challenge.

“Glasgow and Scotland are two different teams, and although their players make up the bulk of the Scottish team, when they put on this jersey the players have a different mentality, so we are expecting them to be very determined against us,” said Esterhuizen. “Obviously we are hoping to win the match, but we know it’s going to be a massive battle.”

The match kicks off at 18h10 on Sunday and will be broadcast live on SuperSport.