Duane Vermeulen said ill-discipline caused the Springboks to make hard work of the clash against a relentless Pumas outfit at Ellis Park on Saturday.
The Springboks were made to sweat for a one-point win against the Pumas, after taking a 15-9 lead into the break following a dominant first-half performance.
The scrappy match was littered with stoppages as a result of handling errors and injuries, concussions suffered by scrumhalf Grant Williams and Argentina’s Lucas Paulos contributing to the problem.
Argentina came back firing in the second half, putting the Boks under heaps of pressure, requiring the home side to put in a terrific shift on defence to secure the win.
“It was a stop-start game for us, and I think our discipline wasn’t great,” said Vermeulen, who captained the Boks in what is potentially his final home appearance in the green and gold.
“Sometimes penalties just happen and then you get those avoidable penalties that you shouldn’t give away and that was tough for us. If you take away those avoidable penalties it would have been a better game for us.
“You’ve got to give credit to Argentina. We saw how they won against Australia and against us in Durban last year they came back with a real onslaught and scored a couple of late tries.
“They play for 80 minutes and we had to keep up, but we’re happy with the win and we’ll take it from there.”
Photo: WIKUS DE WET / AFP