The Springboks het spoke gejaag, according to prop Steven Kitshoff in their 35-23 defeat to the All Blacks in Auckland over the weekend.
With their New Zealand hosts blowing South Africa awaying in the first 16 minutes to take a 17-0 lead, Kitshoff says it was as if all just clicked for the All Blacks in the first quarter.
He says of the Rugby Championship result: “It’s difficult [to explain how we could have stopped them], a lot of things stuck for them in the first 20 minutes. It felt like everything just stuck [for them and] we were just chasing ghosts for 20 minutes…”
The tempo with which NZ delivered their game plan was scary and Kitshoff knows that this is something the Boks will have to look at ahead of their World Cup warmup meeting with the Kiwis at Twickenham next month.
He explains: “It’s something we’ll look at and see in the build-up to the Test at Twickenham, where we can find solutions and slow their maul down.”
Was this the wake-up call the Boks needed ahead of their World Cup defence in France in September?
Kitshoff answers: “It’s always like that when you lose a game the words you use are ‘wake-up call’. “For us, we’re trying to play a certain style and a certain brand and we’ve worked on it the whole pre-season. If we could control early tries and didn’t make as many unnecessary errors. But ja, it is a bit of a wake-up call…”
The Rugby Championship takes a break this week and returns with the Boks hosting Argentina in their final round at Ellis Park next week, while the log-leading All Blacks travel to Australia.