‘We missed chance of a big hiding’
If his team had converted all their chances they could have given the Wallabies a “good hiding” in Port Elizabeth, frustrated Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said.
The Bok coach, though happy with the 23-12 win in front of 41,300 fans at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth, wants his men to be much sharper when they face the All Backs on Saturday.
Though the Boks scored tries via Aphiwe Dyantyi and Faf de Klerk, Erasmus says SA cannot afford to leave points out on the field against the Kiwis in Pretoria.
“A positive from the Port Elizabeth Test was that even though we did not score a lot of tries, we created a hell of a lot of opportunities,” Erasmus said.
“I thought that if we had scored those extra tries we could have given them a good hiding, but in the end it was a close game because Australia played territory well in the second half.
“Though I was disappointed we left points out there, I am happy first of all for the win.
“The frustration is not about the result.
“I guess the moment we start talking about leaving points out there we are taking the win for granted and we are going down the wrong route.
“We must first be happy about the win, but we did leave a lot of points out there.
“We will now work on converting those points into actual scores.
“But at least the opportunities were created, which we struggled to do earlier in the year.”
The defeat piled more misery on Australia, who are bottom of the table with just a single win after five rounds.
The victory enabled SA to stretch their unbeaten run at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium to six matches and consolidate the venue’s reputation as being a fortress for the Boks.
Ahead of the clash, Erasmus warned that Australia were a dangerous team and his men would have to maintain their intensity if they wanted to get over the line.
The Boks have blown hot and cold this season, but consecutive wins over New Zealand and Australia are good omens.
The Bok coach said he was happy that his team was winning, even after changes had been made.
“In the past couple of months when we made changes we lost matches.
“Now we are starting to win games when we make changes and that is a positive.
“We did not play tactically well against Australia, but the guts and character the boys showed in the second half in Port Elizabeth was great.
“The Boks are trying to grow and each week trying to get better. So, there has been growth this season and that was our ultimate goal.”
Australia enjoyed their best spell of the match after halftime, and the Boks were forced to build a brick-wall defence to hold them at bay when Dyantyi was yellow-carded.
Asked why he had not given replacements Elton Jantjies and Damian Willemse a run, Erasmus said: “We make changes in the game as we see fit.
“Like in the All Blacks game, we substituted our captain Siya Kolisi with 10 minutes to go because he was tired.
“The Boks only make tactical changes when it will really change the game.
“In a Test you don’t just make changes for the sake of it.
“Next week will be a tough challenge because New Zealand have faced our defence and they will have plans for that.”
Alex Haindl underlined his 2018 consistency on the Sunshine Tour on Saturday with a come-from-behind one-stroke victory in the Vodacom Origins of Golf tournament at St Francis Links.
He carded a final round fiveunder-par 67 to finish on 12 under for the 54-hole tournament, just ahead of 36-hole leader Neil Schietekat, having started four shots back.
Schietekat shared second place with Jake Roos.
“This is a golf course I’ve always wanted to win on, so this is a little bit more special,” Haindl said.
The victory caps a year in which he has already finished inside the top 10 six times, including in a share of second at the season-opening Zanaco Masters in Zambia in April, and in last month’s Sun City Challenge.
The player said: “The win proves to me that I am working on the right things and my game is moving in the right diStraaten rection. I just need to keep on going in that direction.”
His victory started looking likely during his front nine, during which he made four birdies in a row from the fourth to the seventh.
Birdies on 12 and 13 took him three shots clear of the chasing pack at that stage, and he seemed set to cruise home.
However, he missed two short birdie chances in 16 and 17, and then dumped his approach to 18 in a green-side bunker and was unable to get up and down for a closing par.
Schietekat’s push for victory ran aground on a double bogey on the par-three fourth and a bogey on the par-five sixth, while Roos had bogeys on two and four to blame for not getting up for the win.
For Haindl, the victory means a climb to second on the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit behind the early frontrunner Justin Harding, who is concentrating on his Asian Tour career. –