Smit and White on the England series

Springbok coach Jake White and captain John Smit spoke about today’s game, the England series and the upcoming games.

Jake White:

“We’ve got to look at what we’ve done well and that was scoring 14 tries and over a hundred points over the last two matches, our attack from structured and broken play is good, our bench has played really well, and I think we’ve moved closer to getting the balance right for your 30-man world cup squad.

“We’ve got good momentum going forward now and I’m happy with where we are at at this stage.

“I can’t stress how proud I am of this group of players for turning around that deficit at the break. This was always going to be a difficult game and we just made it harder for ourselves by making stupid mistakes and giving away penalties. When the opposition have Jonny Wilkinson in their side that’s the worst thing you can do and when Bryan got sent off it became more difficult than it should have been.

“But we scored 36 points to three in the second half and I thought the rugby we played in the first 10 or so minutes of the half was the best we have over the last two weeks.

“We achieved our goal and now we’ve got an opportunity to look ahead at the next couple of weeks. We mustn’t think that these players can play for another three consecutive weeks, but we’ll try and stay competitive while giving some guys rest.”

John Smit:

“Obviously we know that they will field a very different side at the World Cup and so that really makes the questions about what we gained here become null and void. Our preparation going into that pool game in 2003 was that we had 80 minutes to turn it around after a heavy defeat early that year, and though it didn’t happen then our approach will be the same.

“So the questions in the week leading up to that game will be about what we’re taking into the match, but it will be all about doing the business in what will be the most important 80 minutes of our season.

“In that challenging four or five week stretch we are going to have to be at a mental and physical high, so this has been good preparation.”