Wales coach Warren Gatland says South Africa star Duane Vermeulen is lucky to be playing in the World Cup semi-final this weekend.
The South African No. 8 is one of the Springboks' key men but Gatland claims he was fortunate to escape a red card or citing for an off-the-ball incident.
In the 12th minute of the Boks' quarter-final win over Japan, Vermeulen put in what looked like a blatant high tackle on Kenki Fukuoka's throat - only to escape punishment.
And Gatland was quick to point out in the build-up of Sunday's semi-final that the 33-year-old might have been a tad fortunate.
"We have got to not just match but bring our own physicality in terms of a World Cup semi-final. And that’s important when you play South Africa, they are definitely physical.
"Against Japan, I was surprised Vermeulen wasn’t red-carded during the game or cited afterwards. Having looked at an incident, we have to match the physicality that South Africa is going to bring."
Some neutrals may point to Ross Moriarty getting just a yellow card for a high tackle on France's Gael Fickou in their own quarter-final victory, but there seemed very little mitigation in the Vermeulen incident.
Speaking about how Wales will counter the physical threat of the Boks, Gatland said. "I think sometimes we are aware of that and try to limit teams’ set-piece opportunities. So you’ve got to be accurate.
"Often you play a lot with keeping the ball on the park and not allowing the teams to have set-piece opportunities and at lineout time allowing them to drive.
"They are a good team. I thought against France last week, our lineout defence was excellent.
"We didn’t allow them to get momentum from that aspect. South Africa have a very, very good scrum, have depth in that area with bringing guys off the bench and quality guys to come off the bench, so our bench becomes important.
"You’ve got to be smart in terms of the way you play. We have played against some big sides already this tournament, big, physical teams.
"Probably for us, it’s important and you speak a lot about our conditioning and how hard we worked from a fitness perspective - that we are able to hopefully cope with that. We talk about physicality that other teams bring against us."
