Siya Kolisi ‘felt amazing’ having led the Springboks to a record win on his return

Springboks captain Siya Kolisi said that it ‘felt amazing’ to be back in the green and gold jumper following his return to full fitness against Wales.

The inspirational flanker made a rapid recovery from a knee injury and now looks set to captain his country in their title defence in France.

Kolisi played the opening 40 minutes of the record 52-16 win, the first time a team has posted 50 points on a Warren Gatland-led Wales team.

Siya Kolisi’s return

The 32-year-old loose forward set the tone for the match when he produced a wonderful offload to Malcolm Marx to score the opening try of the match.

“It felt amazing,” Kolisi of his 40-minute return to action.

“I didn’t have any fear going into the game. Our training sessions prepared me a lot.

“I remember I asked the guys to come at me a little bit softer, but Pieter-Steph came to me and said, ‘trust me, you’re fine’. Those kinds of things you can’t buy – having a guy who has come through things like that.”

While the comprehensive victory will provide many positives for the Springboks, Kolisi highlighted a few work-ons for his side.

“As a team we did well; I thought our discipline could be a lot better, especially in the first half,” he said.

“But we wanted to stay disciplined in the system, and I think we did that well. But next week is a different challenge, and we’re going to have to get up again.”

“We have to get better”

Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber agreed with his captain and said that the Boks need to improve if they are to win back-to-back Rugby World Cups.

“We have to get better going into France,” he said. “We’re on the side of the draw that’s knockout from game one, and just to get out of our pool will be a challenge.

“Everyone would know that it’s our aim to go back-to-back and retain the World Cup, and we can’t hide from it. We want to be the second team to successfully defend it, and the bonus would be that we’d the best first team to win four world cups.

“It’s a massive thing that we’re playing for, and you can talk around it, but that’s our goal – and to achieve it we’ll have to get better.”

Wearing Wales down

The Bok coach conceded that Wales did not name their strongest side for the clash and that a more experienced team might have punished his side’s performance.

“I think it’s fair to say, and without any disrespect to Wales, they could have picked a more experienced side,” said the Bok coach.

“Like we did against Wales in Bloemfontein last year, they probably wanted to see if their fringe players can go to the World Cup.

“From our perspective, we knew we were going to get a young guy against us; a desperate guy playing against a Siya [Kolisi] and that’s what we got.

“In the first half, for 20 or 30 minutes, it really was a grind, and we had to be clinical in our approach to wear them down.

“That’s what we wanted, and that’s what we expected, and because we didn’t know them so well and we had to find solutions in the game – for instance I thought their kicking game in the first half was excellent. We had to find solutions because we didn’t know the wings and the scrum-halves so well, so I thought that was great preparation for us.”

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