OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.45am.
THEY left the defending champions and although they returned untriumphant, the Springboks were still treated to a hero’s welcome on Tuesday morning when their plane touched down.
A cheering crowd of over a thousand supporters were at Johannesburg International Airport, and broke into applause when the Boks made an appearance on a balcony overlooking the arrivals hall.
After their 27-21 loss to Australia in the semi-finals, the Boks downed the All Blacks 22-18 in the third place play-off.
Coach Nick Mallett, who has said the Boks acquitted themselves well, told reporters the game as we know it has dramatically changed, with kicking more prevalent.
“It’s a bit tiresome to hear people say you must play running rugby when the two teams who attempted to play running rugby — the All Blacks got beaten by France because they made errors, and France were hammered in the final.”
France ironically beat New Zealand in their semifinal because “they kicked the ball three times and scored three of their four tries from kicks”.
“There are two key areas from where you score tries now, 75 percent of tries are scored from turnover and the other 25 from judicious kicking.
“The defences are so well organised and everyone tackles, that one-on-one situations don’t lead to tries. Throwing the ball around isn’t good enough any more.
“That’s why Australia won the World Cup, because they had the tightest defence and they took their opportunities the best.”
Mallett also stresses that defences can win or lose games. Last year was a “watershed for rugby in that South Africa led the way with our defence. We won the Tri-Nations with our defence and Australia learned from that and so did New Zealand. Defences have become really very good.”
The Boks conceded only two tries, making theirs the second best defence at the world cup after new champions Australia, who let through only one.
“A proper analysis needs to be done of what sort of rugby won the World Cup, and Australia played very similar to the way we did,” says Mallett.
“They had the smallest number of passes. They made two passes and then set up a ruck. It’s keeping the ball in hand but not throwing the ball out wide.