Jacques refuses to blame the ref or the kickers

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Jacques Nienaber Getty Images

There were doubtless many frustrated Springbok fans around the globe following the narrow defeat suffered against Ireland on Saturday night but coach Jacques Nienaber refused to use either the referee or his teams place-kickers as a scapegoat.

The worlds No 1 team prevailed 19-16 in a game at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin where the hosts made full use of the few opportunities that came their way while the world champions butchered most of theirs until they started to put it together quite impressively when chasing the game in the final quarter.

The Boks only missed seven points from the kicking tee, but at the same time it is also true that when flyhalf Damian Willemse missed his second attempt at the posts it appeared to spark a loss of confidence from skipper Siya Kolisi. That meant kickable opportunities were eschewed before the duties were handed to fullback Cheslin Kolbe when there was a penalty in front of the posts on the stroke of halftime.

So effectively the Boks did turn down more than the seven. As Nienaber was to remark, the opposition kicker Johnny Sexton also missed two conversions, but he nailed the ones that mattered, with a pressure penalty from the angle in the final minutes ultimately being the difference between the teams as the Irish went eight ahead, which meant Kurt-Lee Arendses try, the Boks second on the night, wasnt enough to cut or overtake the deficit.

Ja obviously people will probably say that the place-kicking was the difference between the teams, said Nienaber at the post-match press conference.

Johnny also missed some kicks, but he nailed the big ones. So that is something we will keep working on.

It is hard to figure out what the Boks can do to solve their goalkicking problem apart from perhaps call up Manie Libbok, who is the back-up flyhalf on tour. For his part, Nienaber reckons it is down to the players working hard and getting it right on the training field.

We are working on the kicking and that is what we will continue to do before next weeks game against France, said the Bok coach.

We are always measuring the goalkicking and they measure it too. It is something we pay attention to in training. Cheslin hit the posts with his one kick. When you hit the posts it is 50/50 whether it will bounce out or bounced in. As I said, Johnny nailed the big ones, but you can never blame the player for the misses, just as you dont blame the hooker for missing lineout throws.

MORE THAN JUST THE KICKERS TO BLAME

Nienaber rightly pointed that it wasnt just the kickers that lost the game for the Boks. There were many errors that robbed the Boks of momentum and gave opportunities for Ireland to either relieve pressure or create scoring opportunities. In that sense, this was a game that the Boks butchered, but Nienaber and skipper Siya Kolisi refused to look at it that way.

And while the calls of the Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli were often completely unfathomable to the watching audience, with the Boks on the receiving end of some dubious scrum penalties and there also appearing to be a potential knock-on in the buildup to one Irish try, Kolisi also wasnt buying that line.

I can’t blame the referee. They said they checked in those instances you are referring to and I thought he was fair, so that cant be an excuse, said Kolisi. I thought Ireland played really well and deserved their victory today.

“IRELAND WERE THE BETTER TEAM”

Nienaber competed with his skipper and said that the hosts had been outstanding in blunting the known Bok strengths at forward.

Ireland were excellent in the set pieces. We spoke in the buildup about everyone looking at the Ireland attacking shape and their ability to hold onto possession, but the fact is that after us they probably maul the most, said the Bok coach.

They score a lot of maul tries. They scored two against New Zealand in New Zealand and one against France (in the Six Nations) and now they have scored one against us. They are really good there, and their scrum was good too, they never allowed us to have dominance there.

They fully deserved this victory. They were the best team on the night. They took their chances, they blunted our rolling maul while theirs worked with the one chance they had. They used their opportunities every time and we didnt and that was why they won.

At the same time Nienaber wasnt going to allow himself or his team become too despondent because of the result.

It obviously wasnt the result we were looking for but we played the No 1 team on their home ground at Aviva Stadium and had opportunities we didnt use and lost narrowly by three points. We will take the learnings from this experience and try and apply them when we play France in Marseille next week. France are also a serious team, they are No 2 in the world.

Nienaber wasnt sure of the condition of lock Lood de Jager, who left the field with a shoulder injury before halftime but said it does not look good.

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