Springbok Rugby World Cup jersey© Carl Fourie/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Main Issues

The Springboks are yet to define a style of play, even though they should have beaten both Australia away and New Zealand at home as they tried to adapt their traditional game plan, and they had their pants pulled down by Argentina in Durban. Heyneke Meyer had been keen to play with a little more width, to play something other than stereotypical South African rugby, but Patrick Lambie replaced Handre Pollard in Buenos Aires and the Boks looked more assured playing a territory-based strategy. Or did they just look more assured with Lambie at No.10? Their lack of conditioning cost them dear in Brisbane and Johannesburg, where they let slip winning positions in both games, and no amount of mobile gyms can make up for that at this stage of the preparation.

Squad Strengths

The traditions of South African rugby lie around strong forward play, big raw-boned back-rowers, precise kicking from hand and accuracy from the tee, but none of their Super Rugby teams, bar the Stormers, have dominated up front, while their second-best provincial team this year - the over-achieving Lions - attempt to play a different and more adventurous brand of football. That confliction may have been apparent in the Test team. The Sharks and Bulls were each disappointing this year  with key players well below par  and the Cheetahs became lamentably bad while overseas-based stars such as Ruan Pienaar and Bryan Habana failed to star in Europe.

Pienaar and Habana have performed better in the Rugby Championship, however, while the midfield pairing of Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel was an X-factor revelation. And Patrick Lambie, in his one start, provided the precise kicking from hand and accuracy from the tee that had been lacking from Handre Pollard.

Injury Concerns

The Springboks have been affected by injury more than any other team, and they are still hurting with Jean de Villiers now sidelined with a fractured jaw having rehabilitated from his horror knee injury sustained against Wales in Cardiff last November. The fitness of the squad was illustrated best when 19 of the 44 players at the first Springboks training camp of the year, in Johannesburg in May, were unable to take full part, with another five players taking part only in some drills.

De Villiers, Duane Vermeulen, Frans Steyn and Fourie du Preez still are not certain starters, but key players Patrick Lambie, Willie le Roux and Pieter-Steph du Toit have now overcome injuries sustained in Super Rugby, and Lambie, from the start, and du Toit, from the bench as a flanker, were good against Argentina in Buenos Aires. Vermeulen is still yet to play having undergone the prospective season-ending surgery to correct a neck injury that he was said initially not to need, although the form of Schalk Burger alleviates some of the fears that he will not be in England.

What the locals are saying

"What is obvious at this stage is that the Boks aren't where they need to be in terms of fitness and match-sharpness. The Boks failed to put points past the Pumas when lock Tomás Lavanini was off the field ... [to] show once again that the Boks tend to run out of petrol as the game races towards its climax. Their accuracy also let them down in this period. [Heyneke] Meyer and his lieutenants have a month to bring the Boks up to speed. In the knockout stage of the World Cup, there is a chance that a contest will go to extra-time. The Boks need to ensure that they can maintain their intensity for 100 minutes, and that fatigue doesn't compromise their decision-making, composure or execution at the decisive moment." - Johna Cardinelli, SA Rugby