Jean de Villiers believes that opposition teams should look towards the Springboks as to how they could potentially counteract the excellence of the Bomb Squad.

For the final three matches of the recent Six Nations, France looked at South Africa for inspiration as they went with a split of seven forwards and one back against Italy, Ireland and Scotland.

No other side had attempted it until the French used it in the second part of the Six Nations campaign and it proved to be mightily effective.

Le Bomb Squad

In all three matches, ‘Le Bomb Squad’ impacted the game to great effect, leaving opponents to question how they could compete with it going forward.

De Villiers thinks there is something that could work, however, and ironically reckons that the Boks hold the key with how they played against France two-and-a-half years ago.

“You’ve got to fight power with power. [Or] think back to 2022 in November when South Africa played France in Marseille, the way that the Boks decided to not kick it back from a long kick and run back from deep to make the forwards work,” he said on the Boks Office podcast.

“I think that’s how you defuse that.”

While France went with a 6-2 on that occasion and will now effectively replace their entire pack in the second period with a 7-1, it is the idea of making the forwards run those long distances to tire them out quicker.

France expect opponents to punt the ball back when using their long kicking game but, by attempting to counter-attack and going through a few phases, De Villiers and fellow Springboks legend Schalk Burger think it could pay dividends as the game goes on.

“With the long kicking game, you truck it back and you make those biggies in the middle work, make tackles,” Burger said before De Villiers added: “You still have a fresh pack to come on but I think that will certainly help to an extent.”

To some degree, it was what England did in their victory over France in the second round of the Six Nations as Marcus Smith often looked to run the ball back from long French kicks.

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Springboks v France with 7-1 splits?

“If you take the pace out of the game, those athletes that they’ve got currently, that suits them because they’re power athletes,” Burger said.

“I think you want to keep ball in play against the French side, make the forwards work, make them do tackles, put different pressure on them through your contested kicking game, force them to work back 50 metres and then make one or two of those dead carries.

“Eventually space is going to open up for you but the fact that they’ve got a fresh pack coming off the bench, which they access like we do, it will be fascinating to see if both countries go 7-1 split against each other.

“Their biggest gift is those body types at the breakdown, they’ve got the ability to take the pace out of it. Even if you get one or two quick rucks, there’s a big hit, man over the ball, slow ruck, five second, seven second ruck – there’s a turnover or you’ve got to get to your kicking shape.”

Should France control the tempo of the game, however, De Villiers admits that they will be very difficult for any side to stop.

“The players that they have, even if you slow it down against them when they’ve got the ball – you think [Emmanuel] Meafou, [Peato] Mauvaka – they can run into the wall and get some momentum. They can generate quick ball from that again because it’s impossible to slow it down all the time,” the ex-Springboks skipper added.