Quote from Alex bobby on October 18, 2023, 10:34 AM

England have secret weapon to beat South Africa thanks to 'inside man' at Rugby World Cup

England will face South Africa in the Rugby World Cup semi-finals on Saturday

England might just have the edge when it comes to facing South Africa in the Rugby World Cup semi-finals thanks to their 'inside man' within the camp. Steve Borthwick's side will go into Saturday's fixture as major underdogs but will have high hopes of beating the reigning world champions and booking their place in the final against either New Zealand or Argentina.

England have reshuffled their management team since losing to South Africa in the 2019 final, with the likes of Kevin Sniffled, Tom Harrison and Richard Wigglesworth having joined the backroom team. Perhaps their biggest coup has been the capture of strength and conditioning coach Aled Walters, who played a major role in shaping the Springboks' triumph four years ago.

Walters was an unsung hero for South Africa as he drove the standards up in terms of fitness with his relentless training drills and meticulous preparation. Former Springboks hooker Schalk Brits recently offered some insight into how Walters operates, with England already reaping the rewards of his calculated approach behind the scenes.

He said: "The one thing that he did, that people don’t know, leading up to the World Cup is, he said: ‘Boys, we’re going to maximise every effort we can. We’re not going to taper into games, and maybe your performance won’t be as good on the weekends, but we’ll peak at the World Cup'. And that is what you’ve seen with England.

The training drills led by Walters are known to be notoriously brutal and many South Africa players lost several kilograms of water weight in single sessions during his time with the Springboks. His arrival in the England camp has seen a number of gym records set over the last few months, with prop Ellis Genge recording new personal bests of squatting 210kg and bench pressing 180kg.

England fly-half George Ford recently underlined his admiration for Walters by explaining that everything he does is carefully planned to extract the very best from his players while ensuring they hit their peaks at the right time.

"It is like having another rugby coach to be honest with you," Ford told The Telegraph earlier this year. “Other strength and conditioning coaches may be purely gym-based but he has his rugby hat on. At the forefront of everything he does is how can you make the individual and the team better at playing rugby rather than scores in the gym."I have never done a session under Aled where I have thought: 'This is mindless'. I have always thought: 'This is well thought out, this is going to make us fitter, it is going to make us better'.