Victor Matfield has seen Morné Steyn guide the Bulls to three Super Rugby titles and many great Springbok victories over the years.
But even Matfield seemed to be at a loss for words when asked for his reaction to Steyn’s fateful penalty that did not go into touch in Saturday’s 24-23 Rugby Championship defeat to the Wallabies at Patersons Stadium.
The Boks had repelled wave after wave of Wallaby pressure on their tryline, with replacement hooker Bismarck du Plessis winning the relieving penalty at the breakdown. But then Steyn inexplicably missed touch and the Wallabies hit back through Israel Folau, and Rob Horne charged through in the left-hand corner, stepping past Steyn himself to score.
The missed touch kick also meant that Bryan Habana couldn’t come back on to the field when he was supposed to – keeping the Boks at a one-man disadvantage – after receiving a harsh yellow card from Irish referee George Clancy for a high tackle on Adam Ashley-Cooper.
The official Saru match summary shows that Habana left the field in the 66th minute and came back on in the 79th, a total of 13 minutes in the sin-bin. “It’s (Steyn’s penalty) something that sometimes happens – I’ve missed a line-out at a vital time. It happens in life, and unfortunately, we couldn’t back it up with good defence. So, it’s a pity, but sometimes it happens,” Matfield said.
“Our defence on our line with 14 men, I thought was pretty impressive. Bismarck came on and made a huge steal there that almost got us out of it. But unfortunately we let it slip and they came back and scored the try.
“It’s (Habana’s yellow card) difficult, but it happened. It’s a pity that we had to play with 14 men in those last 10 minutes. We were six points ahead in these difficult conditions, and the game was there to be won. Unfortunately they kept the ball pretty well there, with us ready to get our 15th man on the field. But again, you should make sure when you tackle, you go low. And hopefully next time we won’t do it again.”
Matfield himself made a strong return to the side after missing the two Argentina games with a hamstring problem, commanding the line-outs and putting in a busy shift on attack and defence.
The Boks also stole a few Wallaby line-outs, but the 37-year-old lock knows that it will be even tougher when they come up against the All Blacks in Wellington on Saturday. And one area Matfield wants to see an improvement in is the driving maul, as the Wallabies managed to sack most of those on the night.
“It felt pretty good. I don’t think it was the quickest game ever, so that helped a little bit. I think I will be really tested in Wellington!” he exclaimed. “I must say that I think they did very well in stopping our drives, our mauls. It’s something that we will have to go and look at as it’s a big weapon of ours, but it didn’t work in this game. We will have to see how legal that was. But ja, it didn’t work for us.
“I went to George (Clancy) a few times to ask him just to look at whether they are coming in from the side, but it’s difficult to say now as we will have to look at the video. Maybe they were fine, and then we will have to improve in the way we set our maul.” - The Star