Springbok coach Peter de Villiers had to endure the wrath of the Durban crowd after a poor performance from the Boks condemned them to a 27-15 Tri-Nations loss against Australia on Saturday.

De Villiers looked back on his team's countless basic errors as the main reason for their first loss against Australia on home soil in eight years.

The coach cut a dejected figure after the full-time whistle prompted a chorus of boos from the Absa Park crowd, who had no qualms in showing their displeasure at the quality of the Springbok performance.

The Springboks suffered from the same weakness at the breakdown as they did last week in Cape Town against the All Blacks, losing countless turnovers and failing to protect their own possession at the tackle.

"I think we need to believe in what we want to do. If we believe in ourselves, some we'll win and some we'll lose," said a forlorn De Villiers after the match as the crowd gave him the bird.

"But (the Boks made) so many mistakes today. It's all about mistakes.

"The same thing happened today again. We created the opportunities for ourselves, but we didn't carry it through. We didn't play the kind of game that we want to play.

"We played the ball too much in our own area. We wanted to kick it, and take it in and play down there. But then again the players made the decisions on the field, and I'll back them," the coach continued.

"We put a lot of emphasis on our first phase ball, but once again it didn't work out. All credit to Australia.

De Villiers stressed that his team needed to bounce back strongly this coming week, with the Boks facing the Aussies again in seven days' time in Johannesburg.

"We have to stand up. We owe it to the public, we owe it to the people in South Africa, so we'll do a lot of soul searching, go back to the blackboard and see what we can do," he concluded.

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