{"id":124985,"date":"2025-09-07T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124985\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:06:08","slug":"boks-motivated-to-fight-back-in-wellington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124985\/","title":{"rendered":"Boks motivated to fight back in Wellington"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Springboks, who were still visibly disappointed about the 24-17 result<\/a> on Sunday morning, travelled from Auckland to Wellington in the morning, and will begin their on-field preparations for next week\u2019s in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship match at the Sky Stadium on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Boks showed true fighting spirit to power their way back from 17-3 down 10 minutes into the second half, to work themselves within striking range of drawing the match in the dying moments, but unfortunately, errors at crucial times were costly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I\u2019m very hungry for the next game, and hopefully I get a chance to play,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole squad is motivated for the next game. We had a lot of opportunities, which we missed out on Saturday, but we know what areas we need to work on. Once we have our review, we\u2019ll take things from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith added: \u201cWe know what our standards are, and we\u2019ll definitely try to rectify that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The energetic loose forward said one of the main differences between the teams in Auckland was the hosts\u2019 ability to capitalise on their point-scoring chances \u2013 something the Boks struggled to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it was a massive game, and we definitely wanted a different result,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt was a tough match. We didn\u2019t use our opportunities, and they used theirs and scored a few tries, so we need to work hard for the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, similarly to Bok coach Rassie Erasmus, refused to use the pouring rain as an excuse, which followed heavy rains in the city overnight on Friday, and said they needed to be more effective regardless of the conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball was slippery, and bounced around a lot,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt was also scrappy at the breakdown, and that made it difficult to attack from. So, that\u2019s something we\u2019ll definitely have a look at and work on this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Springboks are currently in third position on the Castle Lager Rugby Championship standings with five points, tied with the fourth placed Argentina. The Wallabies, who staged a dramatic 28-24 victory against the Pumas on Saturday, are second on nine and All Blacks lead on 10 points with three rounds of matches remaining.<\/p>\n

The Boks will face the Pumas in Durban on Saturday 27 September following Saturday\u2019s second encounter against the All Blacks, before wrapping up their Castle Lager Rugby Championship campaign against the Argentineans on 4 October in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Springboks, who were still visibly disappointed about the 24-17 result on Sunday morning, travelled from Auckland to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-124985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}