Soundbites – Boks v All Blacks

Here’s what the coaches and captains of the Springboks and the All Blacks had to say after Saturday’s game.

Jake White:

“You can’t play a team like the All Blacks with 14 men with their athletic ability. If they had played with 14 men who knows what might have happened – you could tell that the crowd sensed that they weren’t on their game.

“Had he given that penalty and a yellow card against the All Blacks and they’d played one man short, especially with the captain, who knows what would have happened. But that’s Test rugby and that’s the reality.

“The score was not a true reflection of the game. I was disappointed with the last 20 minutes.

“You win games with the 22 in the squad, not just the 15 who start.

“We conceded three tries in the last ten minutes but considering we have had only two weeks with this group of players to keep them out for as long as we did was outstanding.

“The most important thing is that we have beaten the All Blacks in each of the last three years and hopefully we have got one more game to play against them at the World Cup.

“A lot of our players are back home and they have had a great Super 14, they have beaten England twice and Samoa, beaten Australia once and come very close against New Zealand and if you had said at the beginning of 2007 where would you like to be in July we’d have settled for this so we can be very pleased.

“A lot of these players will be involved in the World Cup squad and we have a core group at home who can maybe start and if this group of players has to play in a pool match against Tonga, Samoa or the USA having played two hard tests against Australia and New Zealand I can only see it as a positive.

Johann Muller:

“In that 10 minutes when Pedrie was off, we defended really well but the legs got really tired and in the last 10 minutes we struggled. It just amazes me that, for exactly that same offence, Richie McCaw wasn’t sent off. And if that happened it would have been a totally different game. The yellow card made the difference.

“If Richie McCaw had blond hair and wore a green jersey or had dreadlocks and wore a yellow jersey he would never finish a Test. You want to play a fair game and you want to have a fair go at the breakdown and he is really making it difficult for us.

“The first infringement was down in their 22 and the words were ‘playing the ball on the ground’ and that was exactly the same words at the other end. The only extra word was ‘cynical’ – and I’m not exactly sure what that means.”

Graham Henry:

“We got better as the game went on. There has been a big improvement in two Tri-Nations games.

“We played most of the rugby and looked like scoring most of the tries. The score is a fair reflection and think it is a good step forward.

“We probably got a bit frustrated that we didn’t score early. That led to a lack of patience and discipline.

“In the second half we realised that if we kept playing and kept the tempo up the chances would come.

“I thought they played as they would do – with big hearts and big backbones. They’ve never lacked for that.”

Steve Hansen:

“It’s easy to say Richie’s getting away with blue murder. But if you remove the emotion out of it, he’s very good at making a tackle, getting to his feet, fighting for the ball, particularly when we’ve won the tackle. He’s that quick – he’ll make a tackle and get to his feet. Sometimes it’s an optical illusion.”

Richie McCaw:

“In the first half we had a lot of opportunities and made a lot of line breaks. But at vital times the pass didn’t go to hand or we conceded a penalty and made a lot of mistakes to let them off the hook. We felt we were playing the rugby and not getting the reward for it.”