RUGBY
We battled — De Villiers
Posted Sat, 14 Jun 2008

Springbok coach Peter de Villiers believes his side put pressure on themselves by not dominating at the breakdown in Saturday's 37-21 win over Wales in Pretoria.

The Boks ran in four tries to two to secure a 2-0 series win over the Six Nations champions.

"We didn't hold onto the ball [at the breakdown] to let guys set up phase play," said de Villiers.

"We will go back and look at how we get to the collision point. Guys were over-committing but they weren't effective. We must go to our drawing board and give them [the players] the freedom to hurt people again — make them [opponents] aware that we are still there. We stood back and allowed them to play," he said.

De Villiers countered comments that the Boks had been over-elaborate in their play.

"It's all about confidence," he said. "When they scored their two tries their confidence was higher than ours and they believed they could get back at us. For them it was important to come back — as Six Nations Champions — to show that they are a better side than they showed last week".

The Boks started well, scoring two early tries after enjoying the bulk of possession. But to Wales' credit they fought back and kept the Boks under pressure.

"It was a classic Test match," said de Villiers. "If you give your opponent a sniff they will always come at you. I think we had the game in the 14th minute when we were 14-3 up and we should have closed it down by then.

"Our defence let us down and their confidence grew from there," he said.

Welsh assistant coach Shaun Edwards said Wales were more competitive than they were in last week's first test in Bloemfontein.

"We had a lot of excuses after last week's loss," he said.

"I think today was a fair reflection of where we are at the moment. We are not quite as good at the Southern Hemisphere teams but we are competitive. We played with a lot of pride and a lot more intensity than last week".

In true boxing fashion, Edwards was quick to throw forward to the "re-match" when the Boks face Wales in Cardiff at the end of the year.

"We'd like to think that when you [South Africa] come to the Millenium Stadium we will give you more of a game." he said.

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