All Blacks wary of Springbok backlash in Cape Town

All Black coach Dave Rennie said he was wary of a Springbok backlash in the second Test in Cape Town after his side fought back to down the home team 33-16 at Ellis Park on Saturday night.

South Africa had dominated for large portions of the opening hour, until being penalised at an attacking scrum when the visitors were leading 19-16, the momentum swinging heavily away after that.

“There was nothing in that game,” Rennie said afterwards. “I know the score might sound convincing, but It was an absolute arm wrestle at 19-16.

“We defended and defended and then we were clinical and we got our opportunities … a great result for us but wary of the response that we’ll get next week.”

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Rennie spoke about the statistic that showed where the world champions had failed on the night.

“South Africa are the best in the world, they score five-and-a-half points every entry and tonight I think was 0.9, whereas we were 3.7 and I reckon that’s big stats.

“We were able to convert when we got down there and they weren’t tonight and I’m sure that’ll be a massive focus for them next week.”

In many other areas of the game the two sides were level, he added. “The defenders beaten, we might have been slightly in front, but a lot of the numbers are pretty even and so we scrambled and especially second half, there was a couple of times where they could have hurt us and [we] managed to get people back and create a turnover.”

The coach also pointed to the period before the break as a key area where his team absorbed huge pressure without conceding a point.

“I think the 10 minutes before halftime was massive. Scrambled really well and unfortunately we gave it back to them a couple of times to give them another lick there, but I thought we barred up hugely defensively.”

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Captain Ardie Savea said his team’s focus during the match was staying calm in the pressure moments, like at the scrum where they won the penalty.

“We talked about being composed under tight moments and you can just see the boys really present in the moment and all I can ask for as a leader is just everyone do their job and everyone did that.”