Springboks Defeat Ruins Percy Celebrations

August 18 - The captain of the Springboks rugby team, Peter de Villiers was disappointed with his team's 19 - 0 loss against the New Zealand All Blacks on Saturday, but he reiterated his confidence in the South Africans and vowed to come back fighting next time.

The game, part of the Tri Nations test, took place in Newlands. The loss put a dampening on the celebrations by Springboks player, Percy Montgomery for his 100th test cap in his superb rugby career.

After entering the team's dressing room after the match on Saturday, de Villiers said to the media: "They are a very disappointed lot out there now. We were happy for Percy and the guys were feeling for him."

Asked about what went wrong in the match, de Villiers gave his analysis of the game. "It took us twenty minutes to get going," he said. "There's a lot of things that players didn't do. We made simple mistakes."

De Villiers commented on some of the excellent tactics employed by the New Zealand All Blacks, especially the way in which they tightened their grip on the game towards the end. "What the All Blacks did very well was the way they kept us in our half after the break. Tactically, they were much better in the second half."

 Acknowledging Saturday's mistakes ("There were some excellent opportunities for the Springboks to try scores, particularly late in the second half, but none were rounded off"), de Villiers showed confidence in his team's performance by saying: "It's not characteristic of my team to make so many mistakes in one day. I know these guys' ability. They don't slip on the same banana peel twice. It's no use crying over spilled milk."

Percy Montgomery echoed these sentiments. "Our defeat today was due to basic errors," he said, "but the good thing about rugby is that we have next week to fix it."

Tell A Friend