'Our lineout let us down and our kicking'

“COACH, SHORT and sweet,” said the South African communications guy. Peter de Villiers looked and nodded. Short and sweet after a long, hard season.

The IRB team of the year trophy joining them on the plane home. The IRB hardly legitimising their awards system, in a blatant attempt to tick every box, gave Declan Kidney the coaches’ prize and, most confounding, sent emissaries down to Toulouse to crown Richie McCaw as the world’s best player for a second time.

Clearly, the spoils were divvied up before Saturday’s action commenced.

Anyway, back to the short and sweet press conference.

In fairness to the Springboks, they take defeats on the chin. There was some mild controversy about their rapid disappearance down the tunnel after the match, breaking the usual tradition of clapping your opponents off the field and stirring the issue of respect, or lack thereof, once more. Actually, Bryan Habana could be seen seeking out Jonathan Sexton to give a congratulatory pat. The issue goes dormant for now anyway, until the Boks help the IRFU reopen the new stadium at Lansdowne Road in 12 months time.

Most of the questions went to John Smit, the undisputed leader of the tourists.

“Yeah, ironic really today the two departments that normally won us Test matches were the ones that cost us. They would have been well prepared. Our lineouts let us down and our kicking let us down. Just the way the game goes.”

Five minutes in. The fourth lineout of 24 in the match and Paul O’Connell nips in front of Victor Matfield. Jamie Heaslip repeats the trick a minute later. Morne Steyn was described as the Ice Man in the lead in to this game. He had a stinker in the Croke Park mist, missing three kicks at goal, a drop goal attempt and from hand his radar was shoddy at best. Despite the chill the Ice Man melted.

“We just gave (away) too many penalties and Sexton just said thank you very much and didn’t miss too many tonight,” said Smit (it was 4pm but the fog made it seem closer to midnight). “You can’t really win Test matches when (you) start hitting above the 10 penalties against you mark.”

They didn’t moan but fatigue was noted as an issue, with de Villiers firing out some statistics.

“I always knew it was going to be tough in the second half because our wingers alone have over 200 minutes of play time. That’s 500 more than what the average should be in the year.”

Okay.

“Ya, we know we can stand up but we’re that split second too slow because of fatigue that was in our team. We are not looking for excuses. The Irish team tonight took their chances. On the night they were better than us.”

Then de Villiers made a comparison to the demise of English rugby since that elderly team won the World Cup in 2003.

“Looking at what happened to England after 2003, I can’t allow the same thing to happen to South Africa after 2011. Most of these guys are going to hang up their boots after 2011. We have to look at the younger guys. I think we are now aware of guys.”

Any more takers? No. And the mighty Springboks were gone. Sent packing.