MARSEILLE - Fiji are braced for an onslaught from the powerful Springbok pack in Monday's quarter-final.
"I would assume that Jake [Springbok coach White] would be looking at attacking our forwards," said Fiji forward coach Greg Mumm.
"If they didn't attack us through there I think they'd be
wasting a potential opportunity.
"The Welsh got some benefit out of attacking our scrum. If you take away our ball it puts a lot of pressure on the way Fiji play, although we are improving without the ball as our defence has been a lot better.
"But the best attribute we have is running with the ball and putting some unpredictable pressure on the defensive systems of more senior teams that are used to defending a structured game."
Captain Moses Rauluni said he had warned his players to expect an even more physical game than their playoff-clinching 38-34 win over Wales.
"Most of these boys haven't played against the Springboks before so they don't know how physical it is going to be, but we're up for it," he said.
"We have to be right on our game - we made a few mistakes against Australia and they punished us. Against these guys you can't make any mistakes or you'll have Habana and Pietersen flying down the wings.
"These tier one nations crucify you if you make little errors. We probably won against Wales because the boys made very few handling errors and we were on top of our game mentally and we out-muscled Wales."
Mumm said that he believed Fiji's forwards had progressed.
"I think on Saturday we proved that our lineout can match the top nations," he said. "We won 11 out of 11 lineouts and put some pressure on the Welsh lineout.
"Against South Africa it will be a bigger challenge obviously with guys like [Victor] Matfield. But if we keep our guys fairly focused I'm fairly confident that we can win enough ball to involve our backs."
- REUTERS
