Springboks were lucky to get nil

Three things which characterise South African sport: our fans are notoriously fair-weather ones; our players love to say, after each defeat, “we have to pick ourselves up and go forward”; and in the wake of thrashings, there is a clamour for the head of the coach. In the case of the first, our fans have a right to feel angry, and defrauded, after Saturday’s record 57-0 loss against the All Blacks in Albany. It was an abysmal display.

On the second characteristic, at least the dejected Springbok captain, Eben Etzebeth, had the decency to admit that “it can’t go on like this”.

But, reflecting on the upcoming games at home against the Wallabies and All Blacks, he lapsed into the tried mantra : “I told them we have to pick our heads up and be ready for those two home games and be much better.”

As far as the third trait is concerned, there has been a predictable storm of calls for coach Allister Coetzee to go.

The reality, though, is that on Saturday’s performance, even the world’s best coach would have been left speechless by the inept performance by the players. A coach can only take a team so far, the players themselves have to man up when the kick-off whistle blows.

At international level, it is simply not good enough to miss as many tackles as the Springboks did. There was also plenty of aimless tactical kicking – aimless because gifting the ball back to the best team in the world is something you do only when you have a sporting death wish.

However, it is also true that, on the day, there was not another team on the planet which could have stood up to those New Zealanders.

In the end, we were lucky to get nil …