The Bok crew managed to pull off a 38-21 victory at a packed Kings Park in Durban on Saturday, nevertheless it was in the end a bitter-sweet end result because the Springboks nonetheless in the end completed second within the Rugby Championship.
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Doing the double over the Pumas, whereas choosing up wins in opposition to each New Zealand and Australia represented progress in accordance to coach Jacques Nienaber, though he additionally admitted there have been key enhancements nonetheless required.
“We had a plan to go full on to win the Championship. We had been on job up to minute 35 after which they acquired a penalty and the rating earlier than half time modified the dynamics.
“I think we can’t fault the effort from the players. We all sat down and bought into giving it as good a shot as we could – unfortunately we came up short, but you must never take a win in the Bok jersey for granted and we won’t. It’s special…”
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The Bok aspect are subsequent in motion in opposition to Ireland, the No 1 ranked crew on the planet, in Dublin in November when Nienaber stated they’d have a good higher thought of the crew’s progress.
“We’re not where we want to be yet. We need consistency, and we’ll probably get a pretty good idea on our end-of-year tour. We play No 1 and No 2 [France] teams in the world and we have an SA A side, and it will be a challenging tour. But it will give us nice answers as to where we are.”
Springboks captain Siya Kolisi stated “we had some great, great moments in the Rugby Championship, and we also had some weak moments”.
“We know we can win against anyone in the world on our day, but today was a big step forward because it was a third win in a row and we want to take that momentum with us into the end-of-year tour,” added the Bok captain.
The Bok crew completed one level behind New Zealand on the ultimate standings
Nienaber famous that he had used 34 gamers within the match and that some questions had been answered over place depth.
“We built some squad depth. Some players got some experience but that wasn’t the main aim – which was to win the Rugby Championship and we fell short on that. But there were some positives to take out of it,” he stated.
“We are in a better position now in terms of learning about certain positions than we were when we started. There was always this big issue around flyhalf and whether Damian (Willemse) could play there and hats off to Frans (Steyn) today, in a very short space of time he had to slot in and he will just get better in terms of that.
“We’ve also had Kurt-Lee (Arendse) and Canan (Moodie) come through and now Cheslin (Kolbe) has to perform if he wants to get back in – but we know he is quality, and we look forward to welcoming him back.”
WATCH | HIGHLIGHTS: SPRINGBOKS V ARGENTINA
Springbok crew: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Canan Moodie, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Frans Steyn, 9 Jaden Hendrikse, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Subs: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Ox Nche, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Duane Vermeulen, 21 Kwagga Smith, 22 Faf de Klerk, 23 Kurt-Lee Arendse.
Argentina crew: 15 Juan Cruz Mallia, 14 Emiliano Boffelli, 13 Matias Moroni , 12 Jeronimo De La Fuente, 11 Juan Imhoff, 10 Santiago Carreras, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Pablo Matera, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 5 Tomas Lavanini, 4 Matias Alemanno, 3 Eduardo Bello, 2 Julian Montoya (c), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro.
Subs: 16 Agustin Creevy, 17 Mayco Vivas, 18 Joel Sclavi, 19 Guido Petti, 20 Pedro Rubiolo, 21 Tomas Cubelli, 22 Benjamin Urdapilleta, 23 Bautista Delguy.