Defeat against Ireland will not disrupt our momentum: Nienaber

The South African men’s rugby team coach, Jacques Nienaber, says the defeat in their year-end European tour opening match against Ireland will not disrupt their momentum.

The Springboks lost 19-16 to the top-ranked Ireland at the Aviva stadium in Dublin on Saturday evening. 

The Springboks had a disappointing start to the tour, losing to the determined top-ranked Ireland. But the Springboks normally bounce back after losing their opening matches.

They lost their first match at the 2019 World Cup in Japan, and went on to win the tournament.

The Boks will have an opportunity to redeem themselves when they play against France, Italy, and England in the next three weeks.

“I think you learn a lot and it’s good preparation and obviously it builds momentum or doesn’t build momentum and I think Ireland will go into the next match with a lot of momentum. But I think in 2018 we lost 50% of our games and you still win a world cup history will say you can’t win the world cup if you lose your first pool match and if you lose your first British and Irish Lions match and the history have shown that you can’t win the series but I think it’s a myth,” says Nienaber.

The Springboks have now lost back-to-back matches against Ireland in Dublin, including the humiliating 38-3 drubbing, the biggest defeat ever against the Irish.

Nienaber lamented the lack of taking decent opportunities they created in the match.

“The reality is we played Ireland who is number one in the world away from home in a full Aviva stadium and we lost by three points. We had a couple of opportunities we didn’t use and they did and that’s a reality so for us we must take learnings out of it and we have got one week and we play France so for us, we must learn quickly and improve on the things we must fix.”

The Boks have now faced Ireland 17 times on Irish soil, winning nine times with just one draw. The last time the Boks won in Ireland was in 2012, when they registered back-to-back victories. The Irish forwards pack outmuscled the Boks forwards on the night.

Springboks captain Siya Kolisi says they anticipated a difficult match.

“We always knew it was going to be tough and we will get minimal opportunities but when we did create opportunities. We didn’t take them and when you play against a world-class team like this they got two sniffs and they took both of them and they scored tries but congrats to them they did well. They stopped our mauls and our scrumming too they came out firing today as we thought they would.”

The Springboks were also let down by their poor kicking game which really cost them. But the team also did not capitalize on the opportunities they had in the match.

Kolisi bemoaned poor kicking from his team.

“It is frustrating in a game like that small margins may make a big difference but we can’t blame the goal kickers there were so many other opportunities that we could have taken there is so much that we need to look at as a team.”

The Springboks will meet France in the second Test in Marseille next Saturday. –Reporting by Vincent Sitsula