Embrace the butterflies in the stomach.

No I'm not advocating eating butterflies. Nor am I advocating wrapping your arms around your intestines that are spilling out onto the floor.

Nerves are a sign that something matters to you. Spud went to his job interview in Trainspotting with not so much as a moth in his stomach. Being high as a kite certainly helped but it's because he didn't want the job. You don't get nervous for things that don't matter to you. Going for a fun run might not get that queasy feeling in your stomach but betting 100 of your local currency on beating your friend who is a little faster than you might get the adrenaline and heart rate pumping a little.

I am under no illusions that even the senior players in the NZ side will have been feeling the gentle flutter of butterfly wings in the pit of their stomachs leading up to this match. That flutter will probably change to heavy beating when they walk out and face the hostile reception they will receive this afternoon. The first few opening exchanges will be brutal and they must face what SA throws at them. Nerves not only have psychological consequences to them but there are also physiological consequences.

If the senior players get that feeling of butterflies, what must the young faces in the team be experiencing? They must face the psychological hurdle of playing at a ground where NZ has experienced more defeats than victories but they will also feel the physical pinch of being in a game where a win seems very difficult before the opening whistle has even been blown. Both are vital for these young players to experience and therein lies the reason why these matches are so invaluable.

Nerves can be mastered and used in a positive way. Training and racing or match day are two different things. You can prepare for situations that will occur on match day but when it arrives your heart rate and adrenaline can rise through the roof. Energy can get sapped more quickly and lactate builds up faster. Not only do you have to learn how to control that but you must also realise that you will be confronted by pain. You have to learn how to live through that pain. There's a big difference, for example, between running and racing a marathon. Both are equally arduous because you have to cover 42 km but the latter means you're right on the edge between bonking and performing at your optimum. The balance is very fine and if you haven't experienced that enough, when you do experience it the results can be messy. You start making the wrong decisions, your technique goes and you start compensating in ways that affect performance.

These players have experienced playing at altitude in Super rugby. But test rugby is a step up as is the performance required. They don't have to be big increments to notice significant differences. These players will experience hurt today. I expect SA to put us under real pressure on the field and on the scoreboard. How the players react mentally and physically under more trying conditions is what I'm particularly interested in seeing today, particularly the younger players. In games where the result is not in doubt you can coast and not push the mental or physical barriers. When you find yourselves in a game where you need to score and you're hurting big time and you know you have to find that extra bit of energy, that's where you discover your limits and how you can go beyond them. And knowing that you can go past those perceived limits is a very important thing to learn. It gives you self belief in the future when you need to draw upon every ounce of will and effort in you that you are capable of reaching down and finding that extra little bit required. You also learn that when the going is tough and you want to give up that if you ride that dark space out you can come back stronger later and that's where you might the difference lies between winning and losing.

Experiencing that feeling of nerves, both physically and mentally, is an important part in the education of a test player. These matches like we have today are vital for future games when you come up against a side that has the potential to impose its will on you and you find the going tough. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Embrace the nerves and learn how to get them working for you and not against you. kia kaha

You have to defeat the opposition on the field and not the opposition in your head.

We suffer more in the mind than in reality.

Mental demons though can be used in your favour GE. The French players often fear us but at times that fear has driven them to performances like 99 and 2007. How often do we see teams raise their game against NZ because they feel they have to? England played NZ last November but where was that performance this year in the 6N? I saw it in the opening Scotland game for big parts, I saw a team not playing well but coming back strongly against France, efficiency against Ireland and the rest was shaky to say the least.

Our mind can make us do things on the field we didn't think were possible.

To me one of the great feelings in sport are the pre-match butterflies. It can destroy or enable. As said above, it shows one cares.

I suspect both sides yesterday were using the adrenaline to get through the pain barrier. Nigel Owens was using a defribillator in the breaks. Phenomenal fitness but also phenomenal heart to keep running and delivering the blows.