Coming off possibly their greatest victory in Test rugby, Springbok coach Jake White on Saturday evening watered down any thoughts that his team had completely turned the corner.
However, he praised his charges’ tenacity at beating the All Blacks by the narrowest of margins, 21-20, in an epic Tri-Nations battle played at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Rustenburg on Saturday.
As much as the victory underlined the talent in the Bok team, it also broke the Springboks five-match losing run and brought to an abrupt halt the All Blacks’ 15-match unbeaten run, two games shy of equalling the 17-match world record shared by South Africa and New Zealand.
In all fairness to White, the victory over one of the best All Black teams of all time granted White and Springbok captain John Smit a stay of execution with the South African public.
”It’s a tough job being Springbok coach. I knew that it was going to turn, and what better game than to beat the All Blacks? To get a win from where we were is probably the biggest win for this young team. If the All Blacks were not hungry to beat the world record, then they were not hungry at all.
”This is the biggest win I’ve had since being coach,” said White after the game.
The Springboks were highly competitive in the line-outs, scrums and points of breakdown. Standing tall in the line-outs was Victor Matfield, who was ever so disruptive for the All Blacks, and the accurate throwing of Smit, who was playing in his hometown.
Flanker Pierre Spies, who was duly awarded the man-of-the-match prize, was a revelation for the Springboks as he gained valuable yardage and fearlessly wrestled with All Black captain Richie McCaw at ruck time.
”We tried to put as much pressure on as many line-outs as we could. Today [Saturday] it helped a lot as we turned over crucial ball. The hunger, desperation and all those words that happen after five losses helped us. It is nice to smile after a Test match; it’s a nice feeling after such a long time. Every player that was on the field put their hands up,” Smit said.
Playing only in his third Test, Spies looks set to keep the number-six jersey long after Joe van Niekerk, Juan Smith and Schalk Burger return.
”It was an unbelievable game. It was great because we competed in every aspect of the game and it was an amazing experience,” said Spies.
White, though, was quick to put the match into perspective and was weary not to make a noise ahead of their final encounter against Australia in the Nelson Mandela Challenge at Ellis Park next Saturday. ”We mustn’t jump the gun. As much as it was a good win, we must finish on a high against Australia.”
On the other hand, the All Blacks were devastated at completing their Tri-Nations on a low.
”We expect this sort of Test against the Springboks. We had opportunities but they forced us into mistakes. What is frustrating is that we had opportunities to score tries, but we didn’t finish. The Boks were desperate, we knew that and we wanted to come out and match that. We made mistakes and they capitalised,” said McCaw.
All Black coach Graham Henry applauded the Boks for showing greater desire to win than his team.
”A huge pat on the Springboks; they won the game of rugby. Their desire was greater than ours, but this was a great learning experience for us. We need these sort of situations, looking at it positively.
The clean sweep of winning the Tri-Nations and the games we’ve won wasn’t enough to get us up for this encounter. The guys went out there and did their best, but it wasn’t good enough. We weren’t on the edge, they were and that was the difference,” said Henry. — Sapa