Springbok Women performance coach Swys de Bruin said his team need more clarity around the breakdown and must stop conceding points during soft moments if they want to deliver a better performance against Canada next weekend in Gqeberha.
De Bruin spoke after their 50-20 defeat to the North American team, ranked second in the world, and the coach lamented many soft moments during the match.
“We gave away four soft tries and that was 28 points gone,” said De Bruin.
“Against a team like Canada, who is really skilful and have a good style of rugby, that is never going to give you the result you want. Also, six of the first seven penalties against us were for breakdown infringements and that is something we will have to look at this coming week.
“We worked with Alain Rolland during the week in order to be accurate in those areas, but the application of the breakdowns was different to what our players trained in the week and we could not adapt.
“That is a great lesson for us though, as the same thing will happen at the World Cup, where each match will have its own dynamics. So, in that regard, today was good for us, showing us flaws in our approach.”
De Bruin said that, despite the scoreline, they had a number of good moments as well, especially in the second half.
“Last time we played Canada they won 66-7 and today showed that we are closing the gap,” he said.
“The improvement is real and the whole purpose of this match was to show us there our weaknesses are, and we are we doing well.
“The same will apply next weekend and when we play the Black Ferns XVs in a couple of weeks’ time. If we learn from the lessons and eliminate them, we will keep improving as we get closer to the Rugby World Cup.”
Bok captain Nolusindiso Booi said the pressure of playing against a top-ranked team such as Canada was massive and that created some unforced errors.
“We prepared well, but today we did not always apply ourselves well and that is disappointing,” said Booi.
“However, we saw that across the squad, the players got better and better as the game went on. We will go back, work hard and give it another go next weekend.”
Nadine Roos, who moved to scrumhalf in the second half, said the fast pace of the game suited her: “I am happy to play wherever the coach wants me to play and it went well when I moved from fullback to scrumhalf in the second half. I just want to be around the ball and where the action is and is happy that I got that chance today.”