The Springboks are headed home after a winless five-week Australasian tour, looking forward to finishing the Tri-Nations rugby series on an upswing with three home matches at altitude.
South Africa’s players were heartbroken to go down to a converted try in the final minutes of their 20-18 loss to Australia in Sydney on Saturday, just three weeks after the ignominy of a record 49-0 thumping by the Wallabies.
They now trail leaders New Zealand by 12 points and will have to win all their remaining games with the All Blacks and Wallabies, and hope for New Zealand to be upset by Australia, to have a chance of winning the series.
Embattled coach Jake White, who watched his team fall to their fourth straight defeat and lose the Mandela Plate to Australia, said he was proud of the turnaround since their thrashing in Brisbane.
”All we’ve heard about for the last three weeks is 49-0, 49-0, but you’ve got to give credit to the players to turn a game around like that,” White said on Sunday.
”Some teams win and some teams lose,” he said. ”I don’t think they won, I think we lost. That sums it up for me.”
It’s been a tour from hell for the Springboks, on the end of damning media criticism and capped by the gut-wrenching loss in the final minutes of the Sydney Test.
”We’ve been on the road for five weeks and we’ve obviously got the hardest part of the away leg, but that didn’t worry us in 2004, so we have got to make sure we use whatever we can to get past New Zealand,” he said.
”It hurts because of the pressure the players felt, the negative publicity they’ve been getting. They probably really wanted to win so they could maybe get up and react, but it wasn’t to be.
”In the context of the three losses, this one hurts the most because it’s the most consecutive times we’ve lost and it’s been the most times we’ve been abused in the media.”
White is looking to the three home games against New Zealand in Pretoria and Rustenburg and the Wallabies in Johannesburg over three successive Saturdays to finish a troubled southern-hemisphere campaign.
”We have a very proud record at home; we’ve lost one game in three years. And that’s why three weeks ago [losing 49-0] was such a hurtful occasion,” he said.
White said Saturday’s Test had been a game of inches, all going against his team.
”We were winning the game for most of the part. I thought the players played outstandingly well, the forwards showed everything expected of them and then it was a game of inches,” he said. ”[Stirling Mortlock] hits the pole with that conversion, it just shows you how close these Test matches are.”
Australia’s other try had an element of good fortune when flyhalf Butch James’s across-field kick was latched on to by winger Mark Gerrard, who outpaced the Springbok defence for a 50m try.
”If that ball had bounced one metre right or left, it would have gone into one of our players’ hands and everyone would have said it was a brilliant kick. That’s the inches I’m talking about,” White said.
Captain and hooker John Smit, who was heartbroken over the loss, said: ”It’s been a large learning experience these last five weeks.
”It started terribly and there would have been many teams who would have gotten even worse from losing 49-0 and probably would have spiralled further down, yet the guys got better and better in Wellington and in Sydney.
”That’s why it hurts because there’s a lot of pride in this team and a lot more to come. We’re looking forward to the three home games; we’ve improved every single week and the guys have really shown some true grit.
”It’s not good enough. We haven’t won one and that’s why we have to keep on working.” — Sapa-AFP