Perth – The Springboks are hurting at the moment, says Heyneke Meyer, pictured, but the coach has called on his troops to “show character and be better” in Saturday’s showdown with the mighty All Blacks in Wellington.
The late try from the Wallabies that sucker-punched the Boks 24-23 at the Patersons Stadium on Saturday night was a hard one to take for the South Africans after they had led for most of the game in wet and windy conditions.
“It really hurts, I really thought that we played well and planned well. I thought we were good enough to win the game, and we could’ve and should’ve. We have to show character and be better this week,” says Meyer.
Centurion Bryan Habana’s questionable yellow card from Irish referee George Clancy for a supposed high tackle on Adam Ashley-Cooper, as well as Morné Steyn’s failure to find touch with a late penalty were major mitigating factors in defeat for the Boks.
But they still had more than enough chances to bury Ewen McKenzie’s team, and were unable to do so.
Meyer was adamant that the right tactical approach had been utilised as the Boks looked for territory with the boot and penalty kicks from Steyn on the back of a pressure game and set-piece efficiency from the forwards to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
But while the conditions made it tricky to throw the ball around, the Boks still had a number of opportunities to strike from inside the Wallaby half and couldn’t take advantage of the front-foot ball supplied by industrious forwards such as Adriaan Strauss, Eben Etzebeth, Victor Matfield and Duane Vermeulen.
There were at least three such instances, with Willie le Roux, Ruan Pienaar and Jan Serfontein kicking the ball away either into touch, straight down the Aussies’ throats, or in Serfontein’s case, a bizarre up-and-under on the Wallaby 10-metre when the Boks had a penalty advantage.
The Boks overdid the kicking, with Le Roux of all people being forced to go totally against his natural inclination as he hardly looked to run the ball back from around the halfway line.
The one time Le Roux did look to attack from his own half, it resulted in a stunning 50-metre break upfield from Habana, who perhaps should’ve pinned his ears back and gone for the tryline. - The Star