VIDEO: Swys' brutally honest reaction to loss
Although it was an extremely tough day at the office for the Springbok Women, head coach Swys de Bruin is not reaching for the panic button following the heavy defeat to France on Sunday.
The Springbok Women, already certain of a spot in the quarterfinals courtesy of wins against Brazil and Italy, suffered a heavy 10-57 defeat to France in the final pool stage clash.
The vastly experienced French team, ranked fourth in the world, put nine tries past the Springbok Women, who managed to pull one back thanks to a brilliant try by star Nadine Roos in the last minute of the match.
The 22-year-old Byrhandra Dolf added a conversion and a penalty to the tally.
“I’ve been in this game for 35 years; I’ve taken big scores that worried me. Today didn’t worry me that much,” De Bruin said.
“They [France] were fantastic – their set play, their play. They scored a few tries that I haven’t seen – so good they were. So that’s big up to them.”
According to the statistics, France had a 92 percent success rate at the scrums, while South Africa had an 80 per cent success rate.
They were also superior at the line-outs, with a 67 percent success rate, compared to South Africa’s 57 percent.
“We knew that [coming into the match]. We trained against them at Marcoussis. At that stage, they couldn’t play us in a full game because they saw us as minors, and today they treated us as such.
“They played very well. I think we mustn’t underestimate their strength.”
The coach fielded a significantly altered lineup, choosing to rest nine first-choice players with the quarterfinals in mind.
“Next week I might be worried – I wasn’t this week.
“I think our girls – the whole squad played now, it’s 32 – and they gave their full effort right to the end. So many of our girls have never played at this stage, and they felt it now.
“We learned a lot, and the worst thing I can do now is be hard on them. Otherwise, I should have started with the nine players that were sitting on the pavilion.”
He added: “This was a league game. But in the context that we made the quarters last week, you’ve got to try and box clever, you know, if you can.
“Say we played full strength right to the end, and we still lost 15-36 – we achieved nothing.
“But we’ll definitely learn, and we’re not even going to review much of this game.”
South Africa will face defending champions New Zealand at Sandy Park next Saturday in a highly anticipated quarterfinal showdown.
The fixture coincides with the Springbok men’s clash with the All Blacks in the Rugby Championship on the same day.
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“We’ve got a lot of analysing to do on New Zealand,” De Bruin admitted.
“The top four teams are in a class of their own in this tournament.
“If Ireland is five and they took a 40 [point loss], and we’re number 10 and we took a 47-point difference, it just shows you – the top four, they’re different from the rest at this stage, for sure.
“They’re going to come at us set-piece, big time – but we know we’ve got a good scrum.”
With fresh players available and a full week of preparation ahead, De Bruin remains focused and optimistic.
“The first thing is, luckily we’ve got a lot of fresh bodies, so we can train Tuesday, Wednesday, rest Thursday, and train Friday.
“We can have a three-day training session plus a captain’s run, which – if we had played our top girls right through – we would have had to rest them a day longer.
“But look, it’s all part of the plan, and I don’t want to give away too much, but I’m not down whatsoever. I’m rather impressed by France.
“They, Canada, England and New Zealand – they’ve set themselves apart.”
