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Cape Town - Springbok centre Jean de Villiers says they will have Wales inside centre Jamie Roberts firmly in their sights when they clash in their Rugby World Cup opener in Wellington on Sunday.
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De Villiers believes Roberts - incidentally his direct opponent for the game - is the key cog around who the Welsh attack is based.
"He is true quality and one of his team's strong points. He's one of the guys on who's number they push to go forward or to tighten things up and we've known that since the Lions tour of two year's ago," he told Die Burger newspaper.
Hence, De Villiers and his charges have paid extra attention to Wales' defensive pattern. "They mostly utilise the rush-defence, but they have a couple of defensive structures at their disposal.
"Nowadays, you get exposed to as much as three different defensive systems during a match and their one is very well worked out," said De Villiers.
The Stormers centre believes the tight defences in modern day rugby stems from the Rugby League code. "The Rugby League guys have brough structure to the defences. Previously, the attacks were structured, but it only recently did the defences also become better analysed."
It's thus also no surprise that Wales' defensive coach, Shaun Edwards, used to play the 13-man Rugby League code.
However, De Villiers is nevertheless still optimistic that fans can look forward to seeing some spectacular tries.
"They guys still score tries. I don't really believe that it's an impossible case to go and score tries. Our rugby code should delight the fans."
* Can the Springboks hold off Wales in their RWC opener? Click HERE for the latest odds on BET.CO.ZA
Click to BUY the new Drifta Mobile USB Decoder
Click to BUY the Rugby World Cup 2011 Game for Xbox
De Villiers believes Roberts - incidentally his direct opponent for the game - is the key cog around who the Welsh attack is based.
"He is true quality and one of his team's strong points. He's one of the guys on who's number they push to go forward or to tighten things up and we've known that since the Lions tour of two year's ago," he told Die Burger newspaper.
Hence, De Villiers and his charges have paid extra attention to Wales' defensive pattern. "They mostly utilise the rush-defence, but they have a couple of defensive structures at their disposal.
"Nowadays, you get exposed to as much as three different defensive systems during a match and their one is very well worked out," said De Villiers.
The Stormers centre believes the tight defences in modern day rugby stems from the Rugby League code. "The Rugby League guys have brough structure to the defences. Previously, the attacks were structured, but it only recently did the defences also become better analysed."
It's thus also no surprise that Wales' defensive coach, Shaun Edwards, used to play the 13-man Rugby League code.
However, De Villiers is nevertheless still optimistic that fans can look forward to seeing some spectacular tries.
"They guys still score tries. I don't really believe that it's an impossible case to go and score tries. Our rugby code should delight the fans."
* Can the Springboks hold off Wales in their RWC opener? Click HERE for the latest odds on BET.CO.ZA
