‘Dankie. Thank you. Yho.’ – Kolisi blown away by support for Boks

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi was almost at a loss for words at the support for the Boks after his team made a stirring comeback to beat the All Blacks 31-27 in their Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday night.

The visitors produced arguably their best performance under coach Scott Robertson during the first 65 minutes of the match to lead 27-17 at that stage, before two late tries from the hosts turned the match on its head and sent the sold out crowd into delirium.

Straight after the game Kolisi was asked about the tremendous atmosphere in the stadium, with him seeming to struggle a bit with his emotions as the crowd drowned him out at first.

“Dankie. Thank you. Yho,” said Kolisi as the crowd cheered. “Honestly, on behalf of the team we just want to say thank you so much for your support. Not just tonight. You’ve carried us through so many battles.

“As a team we play for a lot. But you, the people of South Africa, are our number one motivation. You give us the motivation each and every single day. We appreciate you. There are so many people from different walks of life (that support us).

“We want to say thank you. We represent everyone, we appreciate you and please don’t stop. When things are tough, please carry on supporting us, we can’t do it without you.”

Never panicked

Looking at the game Kolisi said that not panicking and never giving up were key after the All Blacks got off to a flying start that led to a yellow card to the Boks and them being 7-0 down early in the contest.

“We knew (what they would bring). We respect the All Blacks. No matter what people say about them or what stage they are in, when it is time to turn up they turn up,” explained Kolisi.

“We knew it was going to be hard. Those scenarios (yellow cards), we work on them in training. You obviously don’t want that, but we knew they could have a fast start. We always believed in ourselves and we never panicked. We just went on and did what we wanted.

All Blacks captain Scott Barrett was proud of the effort from his team, but disappointed that they couldn’t get over the line after leading for most of the game.

“Well done to the Springboks. They showed what a class team they are. We weren’t quite good enough. We were good for 62 minutes and it is an 80 minute game,” said Barrett.

“I think there were a few key moments after kick-offs where we couldn’t get out of our half and they punished us. We had repeated infringements (in own 22m), found ourselves a man down and eventually they got over (towards the end).

“It was a huge effort. I am certainly proud of the boys. But we weren’t quite there tonight.”