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What Nienaber told Springboks changing room after heartbreaking loss

Jesse Kriel /PA

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has been reacting to South Africa’s heartbreaking loss to England in Twickenham, telling his charges that they were ‘better’ than their 2021 winning percentage suggested.

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Nienaber has also given a warning to the rest world, vowing that the men in green and gold would come back stronger in 2022.

He dubbed the narrow 27 – 26 loss to England a “spanner in the engine”.

After the Boks had shown great grit to come back from a five-point halftime disadvantage, England flyhalf Marcus Smith converted a penalty goal in the 79th minute to give his side the victory.

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    The Boks outscored England in the second half – 14 points to 10 – for the 24th time in their last 28 meetings, but it wasn’t enough to give them victory this time. Instead, they saw a winning advantage squandered at the death, as they had done earlier during the Rugby Championship against Australia and New Zealand.

    “This was a spanner in the engine,” said Nienaber. “It would have been lovely to end the year with a win.

    “That’s the third time this year that we have lost the game when we’ve been leading by one or two points at 78 minutes, so it’s very disappointing. It’s something that we’ll have to look at and improve on.”

    The Boks ended the season with eight wins from 13 matches, scoring 334 points and conceding 224.

    “I told the team in the change room afterwards that they’re better than our winning percentage this season (62 per cent), which is skewed by the loss of those close games.”

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    “This year was one where we always knew that we’d be finding out where we were after missing out on 2020,” he said.

    “I think we can definitely improve and we’re not where we want to be. I don’t want to go into detail but there are things that we want to work on – our execution of opportunities can be better for one.”

    Nienaber praised his team’s comeback after the scoreboard pressure England applied with two first half tries but admitted they had been usually exposed by England’s attack.

    “We usually only concede an average of try per match so conceding three doesn’t sit well us,” he said.

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    “They played well and made it a proper Test match for their home crowd, but it is very painful to have lost at the death once more.”

    Springbok captain Siya Kolisi praised the mental strength of his players. “Mentally this is a strong team – to go through what we have gone through was really tough,” said Kolisi.

    “But we have taken everything that has been thrown at us head-on and we kept working – but we know this game is about results and we’ll come back strongly next year.”

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    J
    Jfp123 8 minutes ago
    New Zealanders may not understand, but in France Test rugby is the 'B movie'

    All I know about NZ is what I’ve gathered from online blogs and posts, and I don’t suppose they’re entirely representative. What you say sounds fair enough. I would be interested to know how the sums add up for this tour and the last Ireland one though, if the figures are available.


    Of course, personally, as a French fan, I’m firmly convinced Antoine Dupont is the GOAT, and the team as a whole are heroes, and if Antoine and Romain are fit, France A are world beaters.

    I fully expect Kiwis and Saffas to hold a completely different view and to back their boys up to the hilt. Would they be fans if they didn’t! They may say whatever they like about past WCs, playing on SH soil and so on, as for the future, it’s up to their teams to back them up!


    As far as “top dog international is best”, of course I enjoy it. But I’d rather keep the fantastic Top14 entertaining me almost year round and have a bit less tdi, than have theTop14 damaged for the sake of two or three games more of tdi gone in a flash. There’s always the WC, and soon there’ll be the world club cup, which as a supporter of Stade Toulousain, the greatest club in the world, of course!! I find an interesting prospect.

    As NZ don’t reap the benefits of the Top14 it seems only natural they shouldn’t care so much about it, but perhaps the club WC will spark more a little more interest in foreign club opposition.

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