Relief was clearly etched into the face of Peter de Villiers on Saturday night after his team had hung on to beat Ireland 23-21.
Relief mostly because the Springbok coach had seen “the ghosts of the Tri-Nations” during those final desperate minutes and stared them down.
“I saw the ghosts, for sure. We almost gave it away (after leading 23-9 as the game hit the hour mark), but what an achievement to pull it through in the end!”
The Boks lost to the All Blacks in Soweto in the last minutes, as they did to the Wallabies in Bloemfontein in the final Tri-Nations match, and the relief De Villiers was experiencing was surely also due to the easing of pressure on his position thanks to a tour-opening win.
The victory was chiefly engineered by the pack of forwards, in spite of injuries to a host of players, and the stand-out performer in a stand-out pack was Man-of-the-Match and captain Victor Matfield. In fact, this match will long be remembered as ‘Victor’s Test’.
“I suddenly found myself with an extra two weeks to study Ireland’s line-out and put together a strategy for our ball and disrupting theirs,” Matfield said of the Bulls’ unexpected Currie Cup exit. “We learned a big lesson last year when we came here and they won a lot of our ball. You have to stay sharp or you get caught out.”
Matfield called most of the Boks’ throws on himself and the Boks poached six Irish throws as well as placing so much pressure on one line-out that Juan Smith was able to intercept a pass from the harried scrumhalf and score the try that was the difference on the scoreboard for most of the game.
The Boks were as dominant in the set scrums and the net result was that Ireland’s dangerous backs seldom enjoyed go-forward ball.
And with the weather inclement at best the conditions immediately favoured the tourists, who had a mean pack, but a weakened back division.
“We were never going to run the ball willy-nilly in those circumstances,” said De Villiers. “In fact the game plan was pretty much what we have been playing for years now – it is just that our execution was poor in the Tri-Nations. This is who we are, and it was heart-warming that we stuck to the game so well.
Matfield revealed that he took one look at the rain and made up his mind how the Boks would play. “You could not play ball-in-hand rugby even if you wanted to, the weather would not allow it. We got the tactics right, got points on the board and then had to withstand an onslaught at the end from a proud Irish team,” Matfield said.
“We played the last seven minutes with 14 men (after Bryan Habana was sin-binned because the team had repeatedly gone offside on defence) and were only two points ahead. We showed great character.”
Matfield added that his message to the Boks all week had been to ignore the critics and to look at the talent all around them.
“There is so much reason for us to believe in ourselves. We have plenty of big game players, as well as a group of brilliant young talent that the Currie Cup has produced. We knew if we believed in ourselves we would have a good chance of winning.
“Also, the message is that no matter what is being said about you, whether you are being written up or down, when you pull a Springbok jersey over your head you simply have to perform. It is your duty.” – The Star