Steven Kitshoff rued a terrible first 20 minutes and a “free for all” at the breakdown after the Springboks were comfortably beaten by the All Blacks in Auckland.
Having opened the 2023 Rugby Championship with a comfortable win over the Wallabies, South Africa were brought crashing down to earth as New Zealand cruised to a 35-20 victory at the Mount Smart Stadium on Saturday.
Kolbe try or no try: You decide
The Springboks were their own worst enemies, failing to start with any sort of intensity, which was ruthlessly punished by the All Blacks, who opened up a 17-point lead in the first quarter of the contest.
From there, the Boks were caught playing catch-up and while the bench made a positive impact, cutting the deficit in the second half, it proved too big a mountain to climb as the All Blacks finished in style with two late tries.
“It’s difficult, a lot of things stuck for them in the first 20 minutes,” said Kitshoff after the match. “A couple of offloads and the way they played, it felt like it stuck and we were just chasing ghosts for 20 minutes.
“I think when we make dominant tackles and get them on the ground, there are opportunities for us to realign our defensive system and actually start putting linespeed and tackle pressure back on to them.
“I just felt that too many of their offloads stuck, the way they just moved the ball – everything stuck for them – and they just played an incredible opening passage of the game and scored a couple of good tries.”
The Boks weren’t helped by the fact that the breakdown became a lottery, with the All Blacks benefitting from the 50-50 calls when it came to side entries.
“It was a bit of a mess,” Kitshoff admitted. “We did look at it during our prep this week. If you watched the All Blacks-Argentina game, you could see there was a lot of pressure at the breakdown.
“It’s something we will have to work on, to create quicker and cleaner ball for our No 9. It was a bit of a free-for-all. We need better control in those scenarios.”
With one round to go in the truncated Rugby Championship, the Springboks will need a convincing win over Argentina, who beat the Wallabies in Sydney, while also hoping that Eddie Jones’ side can bounce back and beat the All Blacks, if South Africa are to win the tournament for the first time since 2019.
“There are a lot of lessons from this game,” added Kitshoff. “We had a very bad start, conceded a quick 17 points, so that’s something to look at – getting a better start and making sure that we don’t go so far behind that it becomes almost impossible to play catch-up rugby.
“We need to look at our structures and make sure we got our structures in place, making sure we get a good start, especially when we play against the top five teams in the world. These days, team structures are so good that you can’t afford to go down nearly 20 points and expect to fight your way back.
“I am still proud of the way we fought until the end.”
Photo: Alan Lee / Photosport