@Springboks
Springbok Women's performance coach Swys de Bruin was proud of his charges' comeback performance against Australia in their WXV2 match at Athlone Stadium on Saturday night.
De Bruin said they are still a work in progress as they prepare for next year's Rugby World Cup in England, but that it was clear that something special is building amongst the group after the 26-23 defeat.
“They really showed tremendous guts out there and that made me very, very proud,” said De Bruin.
“They just refused to accept defeat and the fact that we came a meter short of squaring the match showed the determination. We were literally a pass away from that final try after being seemingly down and out with 15 minutes to play. Much credit must go to the players, who just refused to lie down.”
De Bruin said there were good learnings for the squad and gave Australia credit for outflanking them to score some good tries.
“Yes, we came up short with that (wide defence) today, but that was individual errors rather than the system lacking,” he said.
“A player missing a tackle cannot be the fault of the defence coach for example and we missed too many on the flanks, allowing their speedy wings to score very impressive tries.”
De Bruin was happy with a number of aspects of the team’s effort and said the two bonus points gained out of the match – one for scoring four tries and another for being within seven points – were some reward for the effort.
“We have played Australia three times in the past and never managed to score a try against them,” said De Bruin.
