Springbok captain Jean de Villiers.
“Our goal is to hopefully win every game we play in South Africa and get a good record going regarding that,” De Villiers said on Friday.
“It is obviously much easier said than done and I don’t think we are looking at the end goal, we are looking at the process and the first step in that process is winning this weekend.”
While the victory last Saturday was mission accomplished for the Boks, De Villiers felt the side had much to improve on for this weekend’s crucial clash in Johannesburg.
If the Boks clinch the series on Saturday with a victory, it will effectively leave the third and final match in Port Elizabeth a dead rubber.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer would not be satisfied with anything less than a white-wash.
“The main thing for us is to improve on last week. We were happy to just get away with a win,” said De Villiers.
Butterflies
“Because the butterflies were there the guys were a bit nervous, including myself and the coach.”
De Villiers added that the team was not happy with their performance in the first test.
“Now it’s a week later and we looked at the video and we’ve seen that there is a lot to improve on,” he said.
“We weren’t great on Saturday and we managed to get the win.
“But we need to improve on our attack and our set phases can improve a lot.”
Teamwork
While the team has an eye on the results, they are aware that they need to make step-by-step improvements.
“It’s all about improving and taking an upward step as a team. That is the main thing for us and hopefully, if we do that we get the right result,” the newly-appointed captain said.
De Villiers admitted the preparations for the second test were better than the three days they had ahead of the Durban match.
“You could see this week it happens more naturally… the calls come more naturally and you don’t sort of need to think first before you make a call,” De Villiers said.
“Everything changed. The calling patterns, it takes a while to get used to and I feel this week at training it happened more instinctively.
“I believe when that happens, especially as a backline player, when you start playing instinctively and the calling comes through like that, it is much easier to play.” – Sapa