Nienaber: 'A lot of people had a lot to say about us'

Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber said that losing to Wales in the series decider in Cape Town on Saturday simply wasn’t an option.

South recorded a 30-14 victory over Wales at the DHL Stadium after a week in which they faced some criticism for their loss in the second Test loss to the Welsh.

Writing in his RugbyPass column, former World Cup-winning head coach Jake White said that Nienaber had ‘missed a trick’ by picking the experimental side in the loss to Wales, which came care of a late Gareth Anscombe penalty.

Ardie Savea and Dane Coles say something has to change after gut wrenching loss to Ireland | All Blacks press conference

Ardie Savea and Dane Coles say something has to change after gut wrenching loss to Ireland | All Blacks press conference

The Bulls boss said that Nienaber shouldn’t be learning on the job with the national team.

“It was a final for us and we just had to deliver! There wasn’t an option of not delivering,” said Nienaber after the match.

Doffing his hat to critics, he invited more people to have their say on the team.

“We had so much to play for as a team. A lot of people had a lot to say about us – and we want people to have an opinion and criticize the team – because we know they care. So, we treated this as a final.

“It was not a polished performance. I think there’s a lot to build still. I thought the set pieces functioned well, but still there was a couple of hiccups there – at scrum time we’re still getting used to the brake foot thing – we will get better at that. We will have to build a lot still in terms of where we are.

“I think there’s a lot for us to work on,” admitted Nienaber. “We created opportunities like last week which we didn’t capitalise on. We lost the ball between the five metre-line and the goal-line line five times last week and that’s probably the beauty of experience.

“We had a long conversation after last week we have to learn when we are in control of the scoreboard and there is 20 minutes left, how do we think and get aligned in what we’re going to do.

“I think this week we were much more aligned and clinical in almost how to play when we have scoreboard pressure and the type of style that we have to play to finish off the game – I thought it was a lot better than last week.”