Despite coaching his side to its heaviest defeat ever on home soil at Loftus on Saturday, Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli insisted that it was not time to panic.
The All Blacks stormed to the top of the Vodacom Tri-Nations rugby log after dishing out a 52-16 thrashing to the Boks, outscoring the home team seven tries to one.
Corne Krige, the Springbok captain, agreed with his coach that now was not the time to make drastic changes.
”As the coach said, don’t panic, don’t go haywire,” commented Krige after the mauling.
”We can turn this around. This side’s got character, guts and passion. We’ve won three Tests (this season) in the last 10 minutes. We can bounce back.”
Straeuli is not unfamiliar with crushing defeats, having overseen South Africa’s biggest loss anywhere when England crushed the Boks 53-3 at Twickenham last year.
”I must admit I had a bit of deja vu when I was standing behind the poles today,” said Krige.
”But this game was different because it was on a knife’s edge for a while. It was never on a knife’s edge against England.
”I don’t think the scoreline was a true reflection of the game,” he added.
Straeuli will announce his touring squad for the Australasian leg of the Tri-Nations later this week, but was unwilling to reveal what changes he may make.
”This result will have an effect, but it will not have a major effect on the selection,” said the Bok coach.
”We will look at certain players in the starting line-up and at impact players. Also some injured players have to come back.
Hopefully Thinus (Delport) will be back soon and Werner (Greeff) is two weeks away from playing.”
Asked whether this was the weakest Springbok team he has played against, New Zealand skipper Reuben Thorne replied: ”I don’t think they were weak at all.
”It was just one of those games where everything went well for us.” – Sapa