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Little between world's best packs

Cape Town - Springbok assistant coach Johan van Graan believes that there is very little separating the forwards packs of the world’s top sides at the moment.

The Boks are in Durban preparing for Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash against Argentina at King’s Park.

The match may be the basement battle of this year’s Championship but it is also one of only two fixtures that the Boks have left before they name their 2015 Rugby World Cup squad.  

Argentina have long been known for their ability in the pack, and while Van Graan is expecting more of the same on Saturday he believes that there are numerous teams going into the World Cup with strong packs.

“I think all the top eight teams in the world are pretty close together. Everybody is scoring with five metre out opportunities; a lot of teams are scrummaging well,” he said.

“Because of all of the players in the world playing in countries such as France, England, Ireland, Wales … I think there is a lot of knowledge being shared.

“The forward challenge is a big one this weekend and one that we respect and can’t wait to go for.”

Van Graan confirmed that the Boks would probably be deploying some new combinations against the Pumas this weekend, but he denied that there was nothing left to play for due to the fact that both sides are out of the running for the Rugby Championship title.

“It’s about composure and it’s about consistency. We want to play good, winning, attacking, aggressive decision making rugby every weekend,” he said.

“There is no such thing as the Rugby Championship being gone for us.

“We’re going to respect our opponents. We’re playing against quality opposition. We’ll start at zero again this week and it’s all about building towards the World Cup.”

Kick-off on Saturday is at 17:05. 

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