Jean De Villiers
Springbok captain Jean de Villiers is clear that his team need to take a massive step up before they face the Wallabies in Perth in their next Castle Lager Rugby Championship game on 6 September.
The Bok captain arrived home from the great Salta escape – where the Boks needed a penalty four minutes from time to beat a plucky, aggressive Argentinean team – knowing that the weight of public outrage at the result would be waiting for his team.
But De Villiers is a pragmatist, and, as he points out: it wasn’t the greatest of performances, but a win is a win.
SuperSport
While there is a lot for the Bok management to work on before they take on the Wallabies, and even more before they head to Wellington to face the All Blacks a week later, it isn’t all doom and gloom in the Bok camp, even though it may seem so for their fans.
“We’re not happy with our performance but definitely happy with the two wins,” De Villiers said on arriving back in Johannesburg.
“I think we all know that this is a very tough competition and if you keep on winning – if you are not firing on all cylinders, that is a positive result. We’ll take the two wins but there’s still a lot of hard work that needs to be done before the next game.”
While De Villiers is still adamant that the Argentineans are a lot better side than their 12th place on the IRB rankings portrays, he accepts that the pressure is on the team to show they can do better when they head to Perth. Argentina’s lowly log position comes mainly from the fact they play a B-team in the June internationals and only have their European based stars for the Rugby Championship, meaning their ranking has been in freefall for the last two years.
The ranking clearly isn’t something Los Pumas care too much for, and most rugby fans will agree that on the evidence of the last two weeks they would give most teams ahead of them on the rankings a massive fright, if not condemn them to defeat.
Still, for a team that constantly talks about concentrating on their own game, the Boks have a lot of work to do. They aren’t satisfied with how they played, something that De Villiers took every opportunity to underline.
“I think that’s a good thing (that the public expect more from us),” De Villiers admitted. “If the supporters and public can put as much pressure on us as possible to achieve better and perform better, then I see that as a positive sign. I think once we are happy with mediocrity and just putting up an average performance then I think we are in trouble. We see it as a good thing and we know we didn’t play well. We need to up our game and we need to improve.”
The Bok captain said he did take note of the impressive All Black performance on Saturday in putting up a half century against the Wallabies in their demolition at Eden Park, but that for now, they are in the distance. First priority is the Perth game, and that is where the Boks need to focus their attention right now.
“They were impressive but we are only seeing them in three weeks’ time,” De Villiers said on the All Blacks.
“The focus for us right now is Australia and putting up a good performance against them, after that we’ll take on the next one.”
“At the end of the day we’re happy that we won two out of two and we’re top of the log at the moment in the Rugby Championship.
“But we are very realistic in the way we played and what lies ahead for us.
“There needs to be improvement and if we want to walk away with the trophy at the end of the tournament we need to put up better performances.”
@ Jeraldjay:
Will be difficult if we want to turn it around and be one of the teams challenging, NZ getting 2 points in Aus, gives them quite a big advantage at this stage.
@ Jeraldjay:
Do you see the Boks coming back from Aus and NZ with 5 points like last year?
MacroBok wrote:
That’s 2 points less than they usually get, so doesn’t that count in our favor?
@ nortierd:
That was a second string Argie team.
@ nortierd:
Why not? While most if not all of us believes that we should beat them, it is ridiculous to brand them as Nr. 12, box it up and leave it at that. When there are clearly more variables at play especially in a once off test scenario.
Serious question, how would Arg have fared against the home nations if they played like they did this past weekend?
@ Jeraldjay:
No more like New Zealand.
😆
@ nortierd:
Nope.
Supporters of England, NZ, Aus expect the same. Why should we be different?
NZ drew against the no. 3 team AWAY from home and their coach tell the players to get their act together or they will be dropped. Nothing about “character building” and such kak.
@ nortierd:
Explain how it would work in our favor.
@ MacroBok:
The home nations would not have allowed them to play like that because their front row (and pack as a whole) would’ve had the skills and the technique to counter them where it mattered: in the scrums.
MacroBok wrote:
Why does it make things “more difficult” for us.
Every year NZ go to Aus and pick up 4-5 points, this year they only managed to pick up 2, so surely that’s better, why does it make things tougher for us?
I don’t understand what NZ tally has to do with the degree of difficulty, but if they got less than usual, doesn’t that help us?
@ MacroBok:
NZ usually have 9/10 points after their 2 matches against Aus and tops the log.
They now have “only” 7 and in 2nd place.
MacroBok wrote:
The same way they have fared in the last few years, they keep on losing.
They did beat Italy, and would probably beat France (who doesn’t ?), but England, Wales and Ireland with their best side will beat them, same as they always do.
@ Nama:
Like Scotland, Wales and even France did to us in Europe last year?
Are you and Nortie just trolling?
@ MacroBok:
When last did they beat any side of note MB?
We are stating the facts based on results, you are trying to justify why we were so kak against them.
Maybe the focus should shift away from how “good” they are, and be placed on how “poor” we were, therein lies the difference
@ nortierd:
@ Nama:
Quite simply now we have to win both test matches at home, while winning either NZ or Aus away… which has been notoriously difficult except for the odd anomaly.
So they may “only” have 7, but we still need to basically match that.
So it is not “better”, it is just “not as bad”.
@ nortierd:
Ok Nortie, they are the worst team in the world, their first team won’t even compete with Japan or even Scotland for that matter
No one is saying they were just better than us, it is common knowledge that we were poor and there is no way to talk that up, no one is even attempting to, it is just not so clear cut to say they are the “12th best team” in the world.
@ Jeraldjay:
50 JJ Samuel Jackson?Pulp Fiction?
Regards
75 @ MacroBok:
So, the fact that we didn’t pick up 4 try bonus points against the “weaker” side in the comp, or even a decent point difference, can come back to bite us?
Is that not the point some of us have been trying to make these last 2 weeks?
76 @ MacroBok:
They are not “the worst side in the world”, but equally, they are far from one of the better sides as well.
You missed your vocation MB, you would have made one hell of a spin doctor for the presidency
You are doing a stellar job of building up a side who has lost 15/17 tests since last year.
@ Jeraldjay:
One in particular.
😆
hehehe…
all this anger, angst and negativity because we played badly… but still won a legitimate test match… which will count in the record books till the end of time…
i can only imagine the eruptions of indignation and derision… if and when we lose a test match against aus or nz or… heaven forbid… (whisper it…) wales or arg… or some other lesser team below us not worthy of respect…
heyneke’s name will be mud… there’ll be facebook petitions… twitter trends… bridge occupations… “hoot if you hate heyneke” drives… freedom-in-rugby-marches to saru offices to present 17 signatures demanding the firing of the coach and the dropping of all the springboks from the squad…
heyneke will seek surviving-angry-saffas advice tips from bryce… jean will move in with poite for protection… jannie will hide and disappear on the farm… hendre will pitch up wearing his old school blazer in the cape pretending to be 16 again…
julias’ red ants will disrupt parliament and demand his money back… zuma will consult his laywers for a response… helen will blame zuma…
cnn will send christiane amanpour and anderson cooper to cover the story…
nortie will appear on tvs around the world… and on youtube… “all i’m saying is that if argentina is 12th and japan is 8th and we are 2nd and aus should be 2nd but is 3rd but will be 2nd by the end of the championship… and new zealand is always number 1… what colour is 7…? and new zealand will never lose while they are number 1… and when is a glass half full and how much rain does it take before the cup runneth over… and those people who are happy with a win know sweet f-all about sweet f-all… and are just dof-moffies…?
shall i repeat that again so you’ll understand…?”
Oh drat, only NZ have extended their lead at the top, the rest remain the same.
Lies, lies and damn IRB rankings…..
Top 12 in the latest IRB standings:
1. New Zealand – 93.56
2. South Africa – 89.34
3. Australia – 87.19
4. England – 85.68
5. Ireland – 83.44
6. Wales – 80.70
7. France – 80.01
8. Scotland – 77.78
9. Samoa – 76.59
10. Japan – 75.39
11. Fiji – 74.56
12. Argentina – 73.98
@ ufo:
Howzit UFO?
”
all this anger, angst and negativity because we played badly… but still won a legitimate test match… which will count in the record books till the end of time…”
When is it a legitimate test match, please explain, because it seems some here…hello Gunther and Macro… 😉 seem to think that when Argentina lose, it’s not quite a legitimate test because their best team was on holiday in the USA.
So a test is a test? That’s what I’ve been saying though…
@ ufo:
yes
@ nortierd:
I would say bonus points are important. but a win or draw still is better, even if we got 2 bonus points, we would still have to win both home games as well as either Aus and NZ away… we all hope, but that has been very difficult over the last few years, but for the odd anomaly.
We still need to win, bonus points mean nothing if we lose or still give them away.
79 @ nortierd:
It is quite simple when there are basically two teams in question 😀
@ ufo:
I won’t be upset when we lose to Aus or NZ, anything but, it’s expected.
If we scrape a win by 2 points against them, I will be very chuffed.
Will NZ be satisfied with 2 wins against Arg with a combined margin of 9 points?
Somehow I doubt that
@ ufo:
In stitches over here.
81 @ ufo:
“i can only imagine the eruptions of indignation and derision… if and when we lose a test match against aus or nz or… heaven forbid… (whisper it…) wales or arg… or some other lesser team below us not worthy of respect…”
You don’t have to look far, we lost to Scotland a few we years ago 😀
MacroBok wrote:
I beg to differ, the record books show “legitimate test”
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