TRI-NATIONS: South Africa 29 Australia 17:PETER DE VILLIERS has hailed South Africa's "brilliant" form after their third consecutive home win in the Tri-Nations. The Springboks looked comfortable for almost the entire game on Saturday, sweeping past Australia in Cape Town to follow on from back-to-back wins over New Zealand in the previous two weeks.
It was another dominant display from the world champions, who were led by Morne Steyn’s 24-point haul, and they now head the table with a maximum 12 points from their opening three games. The All Blacks have four, with the Wallabies stuck on one.
“As a coach you can never be satisfied and you’ll always go for better,” De Villiers said. “But it’s working well at the moment, it’s brilliant. I’ve said it before, this team has come a long way and you would have seen it on the field today. The players read the [match] situations very well. We are kind of where we want to be.”
De Villiers was also full of praise for the Australians, who had three of their players – Matt Giteau, Richard Brown and George Smith – yellow carded but still managed to stay in the game.
“We struggled after half-time, but the opposition did not allow us to play,” he said. “They closed us down very quickly. When they were two yellows cards down, they played bravely. They did well by not allowing us to play.”
Captain John Smit also paid tribute to the resilient Wallabies. “They played incredibly clever rugby when they were two players short,” he said. “Before half-time, which was a crucial stage of the match, they were accurate. They had to work through the handicap as well as cope with the pressure that we tried to apply.”
Australia coach Robbie Deans said: “The yellow cards made life a lot harder but it was a pretty good effort with 13 men. Our defence was good under the circumstances but our energy was sapped.
“I’m not sure of the number of penalties we gave away but I think eight out of 13 were shots at goal, seven were converted and that makes life very difficult.
“When you score two tries to one, you don’t normally lose, but we gave away too many penalties.”
SOUTH AFRICA:F Steyn, JP Pietersen, J Fourie, J de Villiers, B Habana, M Steyn, F du Preez, P Spies, J Smith, H Brussow, V Matfield, B Botha, J Smit, B du Plessis, T Mtawarira. Replacements: R Pienaar for F Steyn (60 mins), A Jacobs for J de Villears (72 mins), E Januarie for F du Preez (76 mins), D Rossouw for Smith (53 mins), A Bekker for Botha (76 mins), J du Plessis for Mtawarira (69 mins).
AUSTRALIA:A Ashley-Cooper, L Turner, S Mortlock, B Barnes, D Mitchell, M Giteau, L Burgess, W Palu, G Smith, R Brown, Nathan Sharpe, James Horwill, A Baxter, S Moore, Benn Robinson. Replacements: J O'Connor for Mortlock (30 mins), W Genia for Burgess (56 mins), D Pocock for Palu (56 mins), D Mumm for Horwill (41 mins), B Alexander for Baxter, T Polota-Nau for Moore (both 50 mins).
Attendance:51,752
