JOHANNESBURG - The Springboks would do well to learn a thing or two from the All Blacks and how they manage to bottle up the hurt and disappointment from defeat and redeem themselves in their performances.
There is no doubt that Saturday’s last-gasp defeat would have hurt the Springboks deeply and they would have been left countlessly replaying the final moments of that game. But the Springboks must take the hard lessons and anger from the Loftus defeat and use it to become a better side.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” said Bok hooker Malcolm Marx. “It’s hard. Having a 12 point lead with four minutes to go and unfortunately we couldn’t get the double ... That is part of the game and they are not the number one team in the world for nothing. There is nothing we can do about it now and hopefully we will have a video session. We have four more games left and we can rectify it (on our European Tour).”
Springbok centre Damian de Allende agreed with Marx. “We dominated the game for 70 minutes. Hopefully in the next game on the end of year tour and if we are ahead, we can hopefully close it,” De Allende said.
The Boks have recently beaten the Wallabies and the All Blacks with great defence, but the ingenuity they showed showed on attack in scoring their three tries was good to see as they easily breached the All Blacks defensive lines with their direct and creative running.
“In Wellington we defended a lot and I felt (on Saturday) we put them under a lot of pressure with ball in hand. We attacked well and obviously we left a lot of opportunities out there. It was nice to see the guys have a proper go at them and actually putting them and their defence under pressure and hopefully we can keep on building on it,” De Allende added.