Friday 23 October 2015 15:28, UK
South Africa face the daunting task of New Zealand when they meet at Twickenham on Saturday while Australia and Argentina clash a day later at the same venue in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup.
The Springboks bounced back from their shock defeat to Japan to battle to the top of Pool B before seeing off Wales in a fiercely contested quarter-final. However, it came at a price as they lost experienced captain Jean De Villiers after he suffered a broken jaw in the Rugby World Cup win over Samoa.
The 34-year-old, who is the second most capped Springbok captain of all time, was forced off during Saturday's 46-6 Pool B victory and decided to retire after he was ruled out of the tournament with the injury.
After heading back to South Africa for surgery, De Villiers is back in the Springbok team - this time as a mentor to some of their young players and admits it is far easier being a player than a spectator.
"Rugby is a much easier game playing than watching," said De Villiers on the Sky Sports World Cup podcast.
"Watching Saturday's game [against Wales] was…well, I now know what all supporters go through and it is not a lot of fun."
"It's never nice to get out of a World Cup but to see South Africa still in the running and in a semi-final made me very proud."
Roller-caster
Standing in South Africa's way of a third World Cup final is their fierce enemy New Zealand. The All Blacks were pretty quiet during the Pool stages and topped the Pool without really getting out of second gear. However, that all changed in the quarter-final where they tore France apart in a 62-13 rout.
That performance has made the All Blacks strong favourites to not only make the final but go on and become the first team to win back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles.
But De Villiers believes the Springboks can upset the odds.
"We know them [New Zealand] pretty well, for us we have had a bit of a roller-coaster start to the campaign, we started off poorly against Japan," he added. "But since then we have reassessed our game and gone back to our strengths.
"For us it does not matter who we play, it's about focussing on our game and making sure that we get our structures right.
"We will obviously look at the intricacies as to where the New Zealand team are dangerous; where their weakness lies and look to exploit that. They are a quality side with not many weaknesses but we need to focus on our game and making sure we execute our game plan 100%.
"I think we are going to have two cracking games - I think it has been a fantastic World Cup so far, it's been very competitive.
"Its play-off rugby and I think the results can go either way. In the first semi-final I will obviously back South Africa. I think we have the team who can beat New Zealand and I think it will be a tight win.
"In the other one, Arg are really in form but I think the in-form team throughout the tournament have been Australia and I back them to win that one - let's see if that happens, a South Africa v Australia final."
