Defence, defence, defence: The Springboks are happy to win ugly
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer said his team's defence held the key to victory over Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Scotland dominated the final 30 minutes after Adrian Strauss intercepted Mike Blair's wayward pass to score his second try and give the Boks a healthy lead.
The visitors hardly threatened the Scottish line in the second half but Meyer was happy to take the result.
"All credit to Scotland, they played superbly and just great, great defence kept them out," said Meyer.
"It was not a great game but I'll take an ugly win.
"We know we can play much better but we mustn't take anything away from Scotland.
"They came out and gave everything for their country. I think they can be proud of what they achieved today.
"We're in a learning curve and I thought the guys didn't panic. Our defence was awesome.
"To keep them out at the end, it really showed the character of this young team."
"I'm really disappointed with the second half," he added.
"I thought we played tactically very well in the first half. The plan was to put them under pressure and I thought at 14-3 at half-time we could move on from there.
"The second half we just gave away too many penalties. I just checked the stats quickly but it was seven penalties just from scrums.
"I thought we were in control and then there was a pretty huge swing in the momentum. But that's how you win trophies and World Cups and we will learn from that because we were under huge pressure and kept them out.
"It's frustrating because we pride ourselves on discipline and we gave away 17 penalties, and that's unacceptable at this level."
Official Man of the match Francois Louw also gave credit to the Scots.
"They came out and put on a fight there. We had to fight for every inch," said Louw.
"Credit to our guys for holding out in defence."
Comments
dtoitm3 says...
Match fit means the ability to play at least 80 minutes worth of rugby. Against all the opposition the boks can currently sustain 55. And all our losses (even the draw against the pumas) happened in the last 20 - 25 minutes.
Posted 01:24 19th November 2012
boksmashoffice says...
I am thinking bring back PDIVVY. At least he was all for creativity and would pick skillful players. HM is stuck in the past. This is what you get when you pick a guy who has been out of rugby. I am seriously thinking time to bring in an outsider (Schmidt, Smith and Cotter) what a coaching team. Send those bulls clowns back to Pretoria. It makes me sad to write this but we just do not have the caliber of coach in SA at the moment. We are going back at the rate of knots.I watched the Argentinians v France and they looked more creative. The samoans with a full strength team will give us a run. Steenkamp and van Der Linde are past their best. Why keep picking them? Surly we have better young props?
Posted 17:04 18th November 2012
kappelange says...
Sadly very skillful players dont have a future with the Boks while HM is still there. Lambie and De Jongh are very good players, but this guy wants big bruisers and a 10 that hoofs it high up field whenever he gets the ball. Brussow, Aplon and Daniel will suffer the same fate unfortunately.
The only way for the Boks to be successful is to pick big neanderthals like Alberts, Potgieter and Spies.
Its a real shame but there is no other way while Heyneke is in charge.
Posted 12:22 18th November 2012
FISH says...
meyer is an utter clown we need a new coach he is litteraly killing s,a rugby bring back mallet lol!
Posted 11:16 18th November 2012
rugbyphile says...
What a buffoon--if you let the SA players play rugby instead of your neanderthal rubbish they wouldn't have to rely on their defence. Not surprised Meyer was happy with this. He would obviously be happy if he caused a car crash--wrote off the vehicle--broke both legs --he would say "well the tyres don't have a scratch on them". The scrum in the second half was embarrassing--the kicking away posession was embarrassing--the knock-ons were embarrassing--the whole team had to defend because they were so hopeless in attack after the first 20 minutes. RESIGN!!! Go and play with your mealies or whatever your hobby is--. A decent coach would salivate at being able to coach players with so much talent. All Meyer does is turn them into embarrassing fumblers. They may be able to tackle and hold out Scotland--just--but against good players they will leak points eventually. RESIGN or be SACKED. DISGRACEFUL!! Springboks past must be gasping in amazement--can you imagine John Gainsford, Danie Gerber, Andre Joubert, Doug Hopwood, Hennie Muller, Henry Honiball, Frik du Preez, Jan Ellis, Dawie de Villiers etc etc putting up with this schoolboy thick-headedness--they would have surely just revolted and thrown him out .
Posted 02:33 18th November 2012