Following the Springboks 41-39 loss to the Wallabies, the Springbok Coach and Captain attempted to explain where it went wrong.
Captain John Smit said his side only had themselves to blame for the loss, “Everyone knows here we have players with experience. I told all the players that we have to get up tomorrow and have a good long hard look at ourselves in the mirror and see if we’ve brought everything we have got to the team” said a disappointed Smit.
Smit admitted he thought the side had it won once Saia Faingaa was yellow carded, and the most expereienced Bok side of all time should have been good enough to close this match out.
Smit also admitted it was disappointing to have to have the same team talk at half time as the match at Loftus, and felt Jaque Fourie’s try just before half-time had kept them in the match.
“I really didn’t want to have the same team talk in the first half. We wanted to have a good start but we didn’t implement our defensive system properly. While we trained well all week, we made mistakes and we paid the price. We wanted to put in a decent performance but we only have ourselves to blame” said Smit.
Whilst Smit was honest in his assessment of the Boks shortcomings, it was worrying to hear Springbok coach Peter de Villiers once again fail to admit his side’s shortcomings as he said “If you look at how we started this one, I think we showed character to come back. Our structures are in place and they can take us to World Cup if executed properly.”
“If we execute our plans perfectly, it will be very difficult to score against us. We needed to show more character on defence” said de Villiers.
Well duh…if any side can execute their plans they’ll win. The problem is for 5 game the Boks haven’t been able to execute adequately whilst the opposition has.
Smit also said, “I told all the players that we have to get up tomorrow and have a good long hard look at ourselves in the mirror and see if we’ve brought everything we have got to the team.” He’d do well to make sure he reminds his coaching staff of that fact!
How many times do the Bok players need to get up and take a look in the mirror? If the mirror could talk it would tell these Bok players including John Smit that they need to bugger off and do something more concrete rather than standing in front of it and posing nonsense!
Hey Bhups,
Totally agree. If SARU had any balls they’d admit Div has failed and fire him now. It’s only ever excuses with him, and any other coach would’ve been fired with the number of stupid comments he has made.
A caretaker coach would still have long enough to prepare for the World Cup if they did it now.