Back on the horse after a much-needed win over the Wallabies, the Springboks are champing at the bit to unsaddle their fiercest rivals, the All Blacks, in a blockbuster double-header, coach Rassie Erasmus said.
After slumping to an embarrassing 38-22 defeat against the Australians in Johannesburg the previous, the Boks kept their Rugby Championship title hopes alive with a 30-22 win in Saturday's Cape Town rematch.
Erasmus said they would probably need back-to-back wins over New Zealand in Auckland (September 6) and Wellington (September 13) to achieve their goal of retaining the coveted trophy.
“Our win was far from a perfect performance, but sometimes just getting back on the horse is the most important thing,” he said.
“The big thing for us was to win and not allow them to get a bonus point.
“We are back. We have log points, and we are happy with the win.
“After a loss, you lose a little bit of belief, even though we had won eight on the trot and nine out of 10, but you do lose a little bit of belief, so the big thing for us was to try to win and not let them get a bonus point.
“We didn’t take all our opportunities, but we got eight points more than them, so that’s satisfying.
“But we have always had to go to New Zealand, and beat them twice, if we want to have any chance — so nothing’s changed.”
Brought back to steady the ship in the place of Manie Libbok, flyhalf Handré Pollard delivered a perfect display, nailing six out of six kicks at goal.
His unerring boot proved to be the difference between the sides in a match where he moved past 800 Test points.
“We found the Wallabies extremely difficult to beat, like the Lions did in those two Test matches,” Erasmus said.
“James O’Connor missed two vital kicks which would have made it extremely tight in the last few minutes,” he said.
“Last week I would have said we got a two or a three out of 10 for our performance in the second half, but I think this was a six or a seven performance.
“There were some handling errors, though the conditions played a part in that.
“The Australian back three were fantastic and this game gave us a good taste of what we are going to see when we play New Zealand because they have lightning backs as well.”
“We played a more balanced game this week.
“I don’t think we created 50% of what we created last weekend, but we ground the game out when we thought it was going to be a grind.
“We are trying to please our crowds by winning and playing a better brand and sometimes we get it wrong like we did last weekend, but sometimes when we get into game like this where it’s a real grind we tend to find a way.
“We tend to struggle when it’s an open, free-running game — it’s beautiful rugby but you lose on the scoreboard.
“Overall, we’ll learn from this and hopefully the tighter the matches get, we will get more comfortable with it as we have in the past.”
SA 30: Tries: Canan Moodie, Kwagga Smith, Eben Etzebeth. Conversions: Handré Pollard (3). Penalties: Pollard (3).
Australia 22: Tries: Corey Toole, Max Jorgensen, Brandon Paenga-Amosa. Conversions: James O'Connor (2). Penalty: O'Connor.
The Herald
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