London: Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer refused to blame Romain Poite for the defeat to Ireland after yet another controversial decision by the French referee when he yellow-carded Adriaan Strauss with 13 minutes left.
Instead, Meyer says that the Boks have “got to show some character and come back, and have to look in the mirror” if they hope to regain the respect of the rugby world in Saturday’s Test against England at Twickenham.
England will also be out to prove a point after going down 24-21 to the All Blacks at the weekend, with a late English try giving the scoreline a skewed look.
It was a 50-50 call from Poite, who could’ve awarded just a penalty instead of a yellow card, but he felt that the challenge deserved a harsher sanction. “We’ve got a saying at the Boks that the referee is always right, so Willie also went up in the first half (and was bumped in the air by an Irish player), and we don’t talk about that one!” Meyer quipped.
“But the ref’s always right, and that’s the way he saw it, and there’s no excuse. You have to be careful. We can use it as an excuse, but I don’t want to – I thought Ireland were the better side who were brilliant and I don’t think that would’ve made a difference.”
But Jean de Villiers and his team have to sort out their “handling disease” in wet conditions if they want to be serious challengers for next year’s Rugby World Cup.
Ireland have a shrewd coach in New Zealander Joe Schmidt, and he concocted a clever ploy in letting Johnny Sexton drill the ball into the corners and making the Bok back-three of Willie le Roux, Bryan Habana and Cornal Hendricks run back towards their own tryline.
But it was more a case of the Boks defeating themselves as time and again they would work their way into the Irish 22 on the foundation of a powerful scrum and resourceful lineout, only to see the ball lost forward in the tackle or through a knock-on.
“Obviously the ball was wet, but we should be a little bit closer to each other, look more after the ball, it was just – call it a lack of concentration,” said Meyer.
“The strange thing is that the three training sessions we had before the game were probably the best I’ve ever had as the Bok coach.”
Meyer said that this four-game November tour would determine “exactly where we stand and which guys can go to the World Cup and which guys can’t”, and it won’t be a surprise if Meyer brings in a few different faces for the England game.
Francois Hougaard had one of those typically frustrating displays that has characterised his game over the last few seasons, fumbling around at the back of the rucks and making life difficult for flyhalf Handré Pollard with a number of stray passes.
Hougaard may relinquish the No 9 jersey for the England game to Cobus Reinach, who was efficient when he came on in the second half and whom Meyer has stated previously “will get a start soon”.
Other possibilities in selection could be Schalk Burger ahead of Oupa Mohoje, and JP Pietersen at right wing in place of Hendricks. - Cape Times