ANDY COLQUHOUN & AFP, Edinburgh | Tuesday 1.30pm.
NICK Mallett knows his Springbok side will have to improve vastly on their performance against Scotland if they are to win what he calls the “hardest” quarter-final of the tournament.
Sunday’s 46-29 Group A victory at Murrayfield came courtesy of some bad Scottish errors at vital times in the match that allowed the Springboks to go on a five-try blitz in the second-half.
The victory should guarantee the holders top spot in Group A and a quarter-final in Paris.
That is where the good news ends.
Their opponents in the French capital will almost certainly be determined by next Saturday’s crunch match between England and New Zealand at Twickenham.
If the form book is followed, and tournament favourites New Zealand win, South Africa will face England in Paris, assuming Clive Woodward’s men come through a Twickenham quarter-final play-off first.
Should England, so impressive in their opening thrashing of Italy, beat the All Blacks, it would be the New Zealanders who, once again assuming they win their last eight play-off, await South Africa in the quarters.
It’s a nasty situation for Mallett and he knows it.
“There’s no doubt we’ve got the hardest quarter-final,” he said.
“I think both England and New Zealand count as in the top four sides (along with Australia) so it will require a very special performance by us.
“We just made too many mistakes and if we do that against New Zealand or England we won’t win the game as they won’t make the mistakes Scotland did to let us back in the game.
“We have to improve our ball control.”
Mallett also says his team needs to improve. “Today would not have been good enough to beat Australia and New Zealand,” Mallett said after the Springboks were made to work by the Five Nations champions until the last half hour.
“I’d like to add England as well because they were very impressive in their first match, to beat them too, we will have to get better.”
South Africa still managed to score six tries in the match though but they made several handling errors that could’ve cost them dearly.
“I think ball control is what we really must work on,” said Mallett. “We have to be 20% better in that area.”
Captain Joost van der Westhuizen said the most important thing was the win.
“We wanted to come out of here as the winners and we’ve done that,” he said. “What we must do now is let our nerves settle a bit.”
Scotland held a 16-13 halftime lead and after 50 minutes were leading 19-18, but the Springboks came back at the Scots condemning them to their fourth defeat against South Africa since readmission. — AFP, MWP