VIDEO: Kitshoff opens up on Boks' 'wake-up call' in New Zealand
REACTION: Saturday’s defeat to the All Blacks might have been the wake-up call the Springboks needed ahead of this year’s World Cup in France.
It seemed like the squad was riding a wave of positivity after their 43-12 win over the Wallabies, but some areas of their game got exposed by a ruthless All Black team.
Foster’s side blew the Boks off the park with some early tries and the Boks took a long time to get any rhythm on their way to a 20-35 defeat.
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“It always feels like a wake-up call when you lose a game, ” said Springbok prop Steven Kitshoff.
“We are trying to play a certain style and a certain brand that we worked on during the whole pre-season in Pretoria.
“If we could control those early tries and we didn’t make so many errors, I think it would have been a different game,
“It is a bit of a wake-up call. We knew it was going to be tough coming to New Zealand and playing against a very strong All Black team.”
Set-piece battle
The Boks struggled to gain any ascendency from the set-pieces early in the first half and when they got some clean ball, they failed to make it count.
“There was a big battle in the scrums and we got some ascendency towards the backend of that [first] half and the start of the second half and then we conceded two scrum penalties towards the end,” Kitshoff explained.
“The All Blacks are one of the best teams in the world and they pride themselves on the way they attack. With a good attack, you need a great set-piece, so a lot of credit must go to them.
“I think there is a lot of learnings for us, especially when it comes to set-piece defence and the way we executed our own ball.”
The Boks looked a lot better in the second half when the battle-hardened replacements came onto the field and Kitshoff said there was a clear message from the brains trust at half-time.
“It was all about physicality and actually getting a bit of dominance when it comes to the collisions,” said Kitshoff.
“We spoke about conceding metres in the way we tackled and we couldn’t manage to slow the ball down.
“I think it was a big step up in the second half in the way we stopped their momentum and we put them under pressure and that was mainly the big part of the half-time chat.
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