{"id":76983,"date":"2025-08-19T04:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T04:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/76983\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T04:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T04:44:08","slug":"south-africa-is-not-new-zealand-were-not-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/76983\/","title":{"rendered":"‘South Africa is not New Zealand, we\u2019re not Ireland’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Matfield has warned that South Africa<\/a> may have slipped into arrogance prior to their shock 38\u201322 defeat to Australia<\/a> at Ellis Park, saying the Springboks must remember who they are.<\/p>\n

Matfield, who won 127 caps for the Springboks and lifted the 2007 Rugby World Cup, captained both South Africa and the Bulls<\/a> during a decorated career, said he had seen echoes of his dominant Bulls side, but that South Africa lacked the control to close out the match once they were 22-0 ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the first 20 minutes was like, okay, this is a team on the next level. But remember, we talked about it last week \u2014 South Africa is not New Zealand, we\u2019re not Ireland,\u201d Matfield told John Kirwan<\/a> on Rivals: The Podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to say because I\u2019ve played in a team, with the Bulls, where we were really dominant. We started off very conservative, we had a certain DNA, and then we evolved our game and got it right. But we had the right decision-makers in the right positions to still be able to win finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re 24 [sic 22] something up, you haven\u2019t put in one box kick in the whole first half, and then in the second half you go, \u2018Listen, we\u2019re 20 points ahead, we don\u2019t have to play rugby. Let\u2019s just be conservative. Let\u2019s kick into the corners.\u2019<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Rugby Championship<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

South Africa <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Australia <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think yesterday, in that first half, I looked at it and thought: I\u2019ve never seen South Africa play with the width that we played. It was unbelievable. We scored beautiful tries. It was so easy to get momentum, so easy to get over the gain line.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m a cyclist as well, and in cycling they always say you\u2019ve only got so many matches to burn. Doesn\u2019t matter how fit you are, you\u2019ve only got so many matches. And I think as South Africans, with our DNA, we need to use our matches in the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we were a bit overconfident, maybe a bit arrogant, I don\u2019t know. But I just thought we played way too much rugby after we were 22-0 up. We didn\u2019t have to play rugby. We could\u2019ve just kicked in behind them. I don\u2019t think Australia have the game right now to threaten you from their own 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a team like Rassie\u2019s Boks when he first started \u2013 they do a few things right, they\u2019re very disciplined, they don\u2019t make mistakes, and when you make mistakes, they punish you. And that\u2019s what they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa played too much rugby in that second half, gave them turnovers, gave them opportunities, and then all of a sudden the crowd went quiet, the pressure came onto the Springboks. And that\u2019s what happened in the game \u2013 suddenly everything went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VictorVictor Matfield<\/a> of the Bulls in action during Round ten of the Super 12 match between the Bulls of South Africa and the Chiefs<\/a> of New Zealand<\/a> played atWaikato Stadium, Rotorua, New Zealand. DIGITAL IMAGE.Mandatory Credit: Dean Treml\/GettyImages<\/p>\n

Matfield said the problem was not just tactical, but structural, with South Africa\u2019s approach to selection also coming into question.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, and I\u2019m saying it. I\u2019m talking about overconfidence, maybe arrogance. Even our fans, our supporters, old players, all of us\u2026 we believe in whatever Rassie is doing. We believe in the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeforehand, we played golf on Friday with George Gregan<\/a>, and in South Africa there\u2019s this thing going around about the five teams we can select. But do you really want to select five teams? I\u2019m still not quite there. Or do you want to say, listen, this is my 15 best players \u2013 or my 23, maybe 25 best players \u2013 and I need them in big games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you\u2019ve got Handr\u00e9 Pollard in your squad. You\u2019re playing Australia, a team that just lost out against the British & Irish Lions. How do you have a guy who\u2019s won you two World Cups not at least on the bench? Manie Libbok<\/a> played brilliantly in that first half, but when the pressure came on, that\u2019s when you want a guy like Handr\u00e9. You say, \u2018Listen, go on, just calm things down.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 22-12 up, we\u2019re between the two tens; you don\u2019t have to play rugby. Just kick it in behind them, kick it into their 22. Instead, we try an intercept pass, and suddenly all the pressure is on us. I think that\u2019s where we\u2019re missing out at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we want to grow a squad, and we believe in our squad. Rassie believes in giving youngsters opportunities and putting them under pressure. And in the past, they\u2019ve come through. This was one game where they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, are we maybe being too critical now? Maybe. But I think it was a wake-up call for South Africa. We\u2019re not so far ahead of everyone else as we might think. And we need to make sure that when we go into big Test matches, we\u2019ve got our best players out there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Matfield has warned that South Africa may have slipped into arrogance prior to their shock 38\u201322 defeat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-76983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}