Springboks vow to tighten up defense
MARSEILLE, France: South Africa vowed to tighten up on its poor first-up tackling for the rugby World Cup semifinal against Argentina after a porous defense against Fiji caused it no end of problems.
The Springboks missed 18 tackles in their 37-20 win over the Pacific Islanders, who proved themselves willing exponents of running the ball from all over the park in a thrilling quarterfinal at the Stade Velodrome here.
Time and time again, Fiji's powerful runners broke first-time, often high hits, only to be submerged in a scrambling second wave of Boks defense.
"As much as everyone thought our quarterfinal would be easy, it certainly wasn't," Springboks captain John Smit acknowledged.
Smit said that his side's defence had let the team down, notably when Fiji battled back from 13-3 down at half-time to draw level at 20-20.
"It's normally an asset of ours but today (on Sunday) it let us down badly," he said.
Speaking before the result of the Argentina vs Scotland game, Smit was in doubt as to the task facing his side.
"You've got to have an attitude that anything can happen," he said. "We can't take anything for granted. Both teams will be quite an extreme challenge up front."
Smit was confident that the Boks, World Cup champion in 1995 under the captaincy of Francois Pienaar, had enough to go all the way.
"We've worked very hard in the last four years. I think all the hard work will pay off in this World Cup," he said. "We've come here for a purpose.
"But the way we prepared to play certainly wasn't how we started off against Fiji," he admitted. "Everything we didn't want to give them, we gave them.
"Perspective is the most important thing to keep in mind. Our priority was to get through the quarterfinals.
"We've got lots to work on. We'll congratulate ourselves on winning the Test and getting through to the next round."
South Africa coach Jake White admitted that the pressure had been on some of his younger players but said he was just happy to be the sole Tri-Nations coach to have made it through to the last four.
"The bottom line is that it was the quarterfinal of the World Cup and we scored five tries to two. We probably didn't play as well as we could have. We know that.
"But at the end of day it's about going through to the next round," he said.
"We're in the top four, and we've got no injuries, we scored five tries. What more do you want going into the last two weeks of the World Cup knowing you still have a chance to win the World Cup?"
AFP
(China Daily 10/09/2007 page24)
