Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt admitted that his side were lucky in instances and the Springboks had a “lapse in effort and concentration”.
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt said his side was lucky, with small margins in the game and the Springboks’ blip in concentration proving the difference between the sides.
He said the 38–22 scoreline did not reflect how close their match was on Saturday.
The Wallabies beat the Springboks for only the second time at Ellis Park, the previous occasion being in 1963. The Springboks won the other 11 games against the Australians there.
The Wallabies recovered from a 22–0 deficit after 18 minutes (tries from Kurt-Lee Arendse, André Esterhuizen, Siya Kolisi) to score six unanswered tries over the next hour.
‘Lapse in effort and concentration’
“I’ve coached enough teams… who get a very rapid start, and it can sometimes cause a bit of a lapse in effort and concentration,” he said. “I think they just gave us a little bit of belief. I think we won the second quarter 5–0, so we had a little win there, and that gives a little bit of confidence.”
From there, a few lineout steals, breakdown turnovers (led by man-of-the-match Fraser McReight) and last-ditch tackles drained the Springboks’ confidence. That, while Joseph Sua’ali’I intercepted a poor pass from Manie Libbok to run in a try, and Tom Wright caught a loose ball near his own 22 and raced away, beating the last defender.
“The game was probably closer than the score dictates in that we scored a couple of tries when they looked very dangerous. And we got them on the break,” Schmidt said, referring to the two abovementioned tries.
“There were a couple of desperate tackles where guys were diving to just get a foot, or get a half jersey. We are realistic about just how good they are and sometimes you just get a bit of luck.”
Wallabies expect Springboks to be more accurate next week
The Wallabies coach said he expected the Springboks to be more accurate in the second Test in Cape Town next week.
“To be honest, as well as Fraser did and as well as the other players did, we were probably a little bit lucky. Because Pieter-Steph at one stage just went to pick-and-go and he just knocked it on. And there were a couple of uncharacteristic errors from the Springboks, where next week if they pick-and-go there, and he’s such a powerful and athletic man, he will be a handful.
“The reality is that for us is we know we know we were under pressure and we know that pressure is coming.”
