De Villiers praises Wales

South African coach Peter de Villiers believes his side were in a real Test match after they beat Wales 37-21 in Pretoria on Saturday.

South African coach Peter de Villiers believes his side were in a real Test match after they beat Wales 37-21 in Pretoria on Saturday.

De Villiers watched on as his side raced into an early 14-3 lead, before Wales hit back to take the lead twice, the second time with only twenty minutes to play. The Springboks produced fifteen unanswered points though to seal victory.

Unlike last week, where South Africa made light work of Wales, De Villiers said his players had to work very hard to get a second win over Wales.

“It was a classic Test match,” said de Villiers.

“It wasn't easy, if you give your opponent a sniff they will always come at you.

“I think we had the game in the 14th minute when we were 14-3 up and we should have closed it down by then.

“Our defence let us down and their confidence grew from there.”

De Villiers went on to say he felt his side put pressure on themselves, to add to that of Wales, by failing to dominate at the breakdown.

“We didn't hold onto the ball at the breakdown to let guys set up phase play,” said de Villiers.

“We will go back and look at how we get to the collision point. Guys were over-committing but they weren't effective.

“We must go to our drawing board and give them [the players] the freedom to hurt people again – make them [opponents] aware that we are still there. We stood back and allowed them to play.”

There was a growing number who felt South Africa over complicated their rugby at times, although De Villiers was quick to stand against this view.

“It's all about confidence,” he said.

“When they scored their two tries their confidence was higher than ours and they believed they could get back at us. For them it was important to come back – as Six Nations champions – to show that they are a better side than they showed last week.”

De Villiers also hinted at the fact he may experiment with his side as they head to Cape Town to take on Italy at Newlands next Saturday.

“Now could be a good time to experiment,” de Villiers said.

“We are not going to make too many changes in players and style as we are building nicely now and would be stupid to change too much.

“But we will look at options and see where we are after that and heading into the Tri-Nations.”

As courageous as Wales were, and Italy will be, neither represent the same sort of test South Africa will face in the Tri-Nations.

So whilst we have seen South Africa win two games in good style, we need to reserve judgment on how good they are for a few weeks yet.

By Marcus Leach in Pretoria