Boks keep their feet on the ground

'We'll have to up our game next week'

South Africa may have handed Scotland their biggest defeat ever on South African soil, a 36-16 hammering in Durban on Saturday, but they certainly don't see this as a sign that they will have a free ride in the return test in Port Elizabeth next week.

Both Springbok captain John Smit and Man of the Match Schalk Burger has made it clear that the Boks will have to improve ahead of the Port Elizabeth encounter if they want beat the Scots again.

Smit said that as a first up test performance it went "quite smoothly", but they will need to do a lot of work in the coming week.

"The Scots came at us from the word go, but I'm proud of the guys," Smit said in his post-match reaction.

"They did put a lot more together than usual in terms of the plays we wanted to do, but we need to work on our defence with – that try coming at the end there [three minutes from time].

"We've got a lot of improvements to do."

While Smit feels that the team's defence need to improve, he also acknowledged that it was defence that helped create a number of opportunities from which the Boks scored their four tries.

And of course with the backline seeing a lot more ball than usual, there was reason to celebrate the creative abilities of the Boks.

"It is great to see the backs getting excited out wide and keeping the ball wide. We can still work on the way we link between the backs and the forwards."

Smit said he would have taken a win by one point, but instead got a 20-point margin.

"To win anywhere is perfect and the boys are really happy."

Burger made it clear that next week's PE test will be a lot tougher than the Durban outing.

"The Scots are not going to lie down," the big, blond flank said. "We'll have to up our game and hopefully put up a better performance next week."

He also mentioned the fact that it was good for a first-up test performance.

"We made a couple of mistakes early on, but as soon as we settled in together it went pretty alright.

"We still got a lot of improvement to do, but it was good fun to get off to a winning start."

Burger also felt that the Boks may finally have silenced the critics who said they can't score tries.

"We still have a few matches coming up, but we scored a few tries today and hopefully we can keep scoring tries for the rest of the season."