SPRINGBOK coach Heyneke Meyer gave credit to the Wallabies for their strong finish as the South Africans started the Castle Lager Rugby Championship with a heart-breaking 24-20 defeat in Brisbane.
For the second successive year, the Wallabies snuck through with a try in injury time on Saturday, July 18.
Centre Tevita Kuridrani’s match-winning try was awarded after a long and controversial deliberation between the referee and the TMO in the closing stages of the game. Wing Adam Ashley-Cooper and flank Michael Hooper scored two tries for the Wallabies earlier in the match.
With ten minutes left on the clock the Springboks were leading 20-10 before Hooper and Kuridrani scored. Lock Eben Etzebeth and outside centre Jesse Kriel, on debut, both scored their first test tries for South Africa. Flyhalf Handré Pollard slotted two conversions and two penalty goals.
The Springboks were dealt an early blow when captain Victor Matfield was forced to leave the field with a hamstring strain in the eighteenth minute. Workhorse flanker Marcell Coetzee took a knock to the knee in the seventieth minute.
“It’s heart-breaking to lose like that for a second year running in Australia, but we simply can’t dwell on it and have to take some harsh but valuable lessons to heart,” said Meyer, who refused to question the decisions to award a penalty and the subsequent try against the Boks in injury time.
“Losing our captain early was tough and we finished the match with eight players who were playing in their tenth test or fewer than that. It’s not an excuse and we will all be better for it and we will have to look at ways to overcome this.
“Although we played some brilliant rugby at times, our execution also let us down and I think we left two tries out there, right at the end of the first half and the other midway through the second half.
“We probably lacked some experience at the end when we needed to close the match, but we’ve said from the word go this season that we wanted to use our five matches in the build-up to the Rugby World Cup to get ready.
“We’ll never accept defeat but I believe that we will take a lot from this match against a very experienced Wallaby team. Next we have the All Blacks waiting in Johannesburg and we have to rise to the challenge.”
Apart from the injuries to Matfield and Coetzee, prop Jannie du Plessis had to undergo a head injury assessment in the fourteenth minute and was subsequently taken off the field in the forty-eighth minute. Flank Francois Louw also had a nasty cut to his mouth in the twenty-eighth minute.
All the injured players were re-assessed by the Springbok medical team in Johannesburg on Monday, July 20. Both Matfield and Coetzee will be in a race against time to be declared fit to face New Zealand on Saturday, July 25.
“There were lots of hard knocks out there and all these injuries will certainly test our depth, but the guys next in line will have to show what they’ve got and stand up,” said Meyer.
“We’re already without experienced players such as Jean de Villiers, Fourie du Preez, Duane Vermeulen and Willem Alberts, but we always wanted to use the tests in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship to see what depth we have and there will probably be more changes next week.”
The Springboks traveled back to South Africa in two groups and only had a light flush-out session on Monday before hitting the training ground on Tuesday.
The team to face New Zealand at Emirates Airline Park will be named on Wednesday.
