South African women’s rugby team coach Stanley Raubenheimer says his team has learnt invaluable lessons at the World Cup in New Zealand.
The Springboks exited the World Cup winless after suffering a heavy 75-0 defeat in their last match against the top-ranked team in the world, England, at the Waitakere Stadium in Auckland early on Sunday.
The English who finished top of pool C scored 13 tries against the ill-disciplined Springboks, but the Boks will exit the tournament with their pride intact despite suffering a crushing defeat to top-ranked England.
They will also take invaluable lessons from the global showpiece.
Raubenheimer says, “We are very blessed to be here, we had a good time in New Zealand, you can see the players enjoyed themselves here and there were a lot of lessons for us and it’s great to see the team is still in a good mood after a hiding like that.”
The Boks showed that they can compete against higher-ranked teams with victories against Japan and Spain prior to the tournament.
Raubenheimer says the team went through trying times during the tournament but never gave up.
“It’s easy to give up when the times are tough but it made us very close in that group for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, this is a start for good things for SA rugby.”
