Meyer lauds influence of ‘biggest danger man’ Sexton
SOUTH AFRICA coach Heyneke Meyer admitted that he feared Johnny Sexton in the build-up to yesterday’s loss at Aviva Stadium and hailed the Irish out-half as a true match winner.
Sexton kicked six from six in the win over the Springboks and his carefully-weighted cross-field kick allowed Tommy Bowe to claim the killer score in the final 10 minutes. The Racing Metro playmaker was given the sponsors’ man-of-the- match award and Boks boss Meyer couldn’t argue with the decision.
‘Yes, definitely, I’ve said all week the biggest danger from Ireland is Sexton, he’s a quality player and a great tactician and he knew how to turn us,’ said Meyer, who said he would not offer up any excuses for the defeat, despite mentioning the damp conditions at every turn.
‘You can’t play championship rugby in these conditions and you have to adjust your game and we didn’t do that tonight. But they are a quality side, we’ve said it all week, we’ve studied them and we always knew it was going to be a very, very tough game against them.
‘And if you don’t take your chances against a quality side you’re definitely not going to win,’ he added.
‘I expected them to be well prepared, especially when they such have a good coaching staff, and they were better than us tonight.’
Former Munster centre and current South Africa captain Jean de Villiers was also keen to congratulate Ireland but, much like his coach, his thoughts rarely strayed from conditions at Aviva Stadium. Considering it was dry for two hours before kick-off and throughout the game, the South Africans were certainly perturbed by the lightly greasy pitch.
‘I also think you need to take the weather into consideration and look at the game realistically, the things we could work on – the scrum, the tactical kicking, the lineouts – what we couldn’t do was hang onto the ball,’ said the Springboks skipper.
‘That’s not a coaching thing, that’s basics, it’s grade one rugby – catching and passing.It’s not that we played badly it’s just that we couldn’t catch and pass.’