Saturday 16 September 2017 14:17, UK
A shell-shocked Springboks side have no choice but to pick themselves up for their final two Rugby Championship matches in South Africa after they were thumped 57-0 by New Zealand on Saturday, coach Allister Coetzee said.
The world champions ran in eight tries at North Harbour Stadium, with Beauden Barrett converting seven and adding a penalty as the All Blacks emphatically took control of the southern hemisphere competition.
Steve Hansen's side moved to 19 points on the table, eight ahead of the second-placed Springboks, who next host the Wallabies in Bloemfontein on September 30 before finishing the championship against the All Blacks a week later in Cape Town.
"Credit to the All Blacks they were superb," a subdued Coetzee said after the record-breaking defeat. "That's why they're the world's No 1 team.
"I'm very disappointed and the players are hurting, it's not through lack of effort.
"It is a challenge for us emotionally. We will see how we are tomorrow. I have great faith that these players will never give up. Never.
"We have no option but to fight back in South Africa. We will get stronger from this learning experience."
A main source of the Springbok failure was at the set-piece, which struggled badly after providing them with such stability in their six previous games.
The South African lineout proved wholly unorganised as Eben Etzebeth and co lost five of their 14 throw-ins, offering them no platform to retain possession and gain territory.
At scrum time, an area the Boks were perceived to have had a major advantage pre-game against inexperienced All Black pair Kane Hames and Nepo Laulala, they lost ball on three of their six scrum feeds.
"We have had an unbelievable success rate with our set piece but tonight we were put under tremendous pressure," Coetzee said. "That is something we have to have a look at.
"These guys will bounce back. A lot of people will see the score and not draw any positives from it, but I see a lot of positives in it.
"We need to improve in a lot of areas but Kieran (Read) summed it up aptly, they had been in a Test match - don't look at the score, they'd been a Test match."
