Despite being baffled by the scrum rulings, South Africa left Perth a very happy team after beating Australia last night, leaving them needing just one more point to win the Tri Nations.
South Africa changed their style significantly from a kicking-based game to one that kept the ball in hand more and scored four impressive tries to not only win 32-25, but secure a bonus point.
Coach Peter de Villiers was delighted that his team is still undefeated this year in the Tri Nations and won their last five matches against Australia and New Zealand.
'It was a brilliant performance. We didn't have the platforms to play with that we wanted, but we still managed to play with the ball that we had, our defence was very good, our kicking game was outstanding as it always is and then we passed the ball around to score four tries,' De Villiers said.
‘There are a few things to work and we will study the video to do that, and there's always room for improvement in this team.’
The rulings from referee Bryce Lawrence were the major reason why South Africa conceded 15 penalties to Australia's four, and De Villiers was bewildered watching on from the coaches' box at what was happening.
Despite that, he was pleased with how his team performed and wants to focus on the positives, which was everything outside of the scrum.
'We didn't have what we wanted especially from scrums, so we will go and study the video to see why. I couldn't understand it, but then again the character of the team stood out and the fact that we are working together as a unit makes me feel pleased with the result,’ he said.
'Most of the stuff we worked on worked and we have a 75% success rate. I don't think we'll focus on the negative. We will focus on what we did right and then add the other stuff to our game.'
Springboks captain John Smit was right in the middle of the scrums and also didn't know what was going on in the referee's eyes, but hopes to turn it around on Saturday night in Brisbane.
'It was a bit of a lottery out there to be honest and sadly the numbers weren't coming up for us. The scrum penalties were frustrating and it's not something that we are used to giving away. It was quite bizarre and it did debilitate our momentum for some time,' Smit said.
'At half-time, we spoke about buying another half-metre just to make sure it was even easier for the referee to make sure we were onside and it's an area we will have to look at so the referee doesn't have the opportunity to penalise us.'
The Springboks changed their travelling schedule to only arrive in Perth on Wednesday and Smit has no doubt that made a difference.
'We had a good week. We changed things up a bit and it's the first time we arrived here late and the guys had good energy,’ he said.
'We had a massive preparation on Monday and Tuesday, used our off day to fly and it bodes well for the future as well.'
Smit did not want to get caught looking too far ahead about winning the Tri Nations and all of his and the team's focus is on again beating the Wallabies in Brisbane on Saturday night.
'We'll let the speculators concentrate on the one point. Things that have been achieved so far become ordinary if you don't keep on competing and it doesn't matter what we've done so far, it is the next game that counts,’ he said.
'We started against the Lions saying we were going to play every single game one week at a time.
'We have a poor record over here away from home and this is an opportunity to rectify that.
'Every game will be played on its merits and the next most important game is Brisbane in a week's time.'
