{"id":51479,"date":"2023-07-16T22:30:49","date_gmt":"2023-07-16T22:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/it-felt-like-we-were-chasing-ghosts-says-springbok-kitshoff"},"modified":"2023-07-16T23:38:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T23:38:19","slug":"it-felt-like-we-were-chasing-ghosts-says-springbok-kitshoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/it-felt-like-we-were-chasing-ghosts-says-springbok-kitshoff","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It felt like we were chasing ghosts,&#8217; says Springbok Kitshoff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>A brilliant start by the All Blacks saw them score two tries and 17 points in as many minutes against the error-strewn Rugby World Cup title-holders in Auckland on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa are renowned as set-piece maestros, but all they did in the opening quarter was concede penalties, miss tackles, and lose lineout, breakdown and aerial battles.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunday Times quoted veteran Kitshoff saying &#8220;the All Blacks pride themselves on the way they attack, but to attack you need a good set piece.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are a lot of lessons for us, especially when it comes to set-piece defence,&#8221; said the champion at the last World Cup, in Japan four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a huge wake-up call for us,&#8221; he added ahead of their final Championship match, against Argentina in Johannesburg on 29 July.<\/p>\n<p>With New Zealand holding a four-point lead going into a final-round match against struggling Australia, the clash of the second-placed Springboks and the Pumas is set to decide second spot.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Jacques Nienaber echoed Kitshoff, telling the Times &#8220;defensively we were bad, we must have missed six or seven tackles in the first five minutes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We (also) struggled under the high ball, and those are two of our strongest areas. We just have to improve in those areas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Missed chances<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Nienaber, who moves to Irish outfit Leinster after the 8 September-28 October World Cup in France, also highlighted the failure of the Springboks to take chances.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tonight (Saturday), Cheslin (Kolbe) was called for a knock-on, Eben (Etzebeth) was over the line but held up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you play the All Blacks you do not get many chances, and those you do get, you have to take.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nienaber hailed lock Etzebeth, standing in as captain for injured Siya Kolisi, who played despite the midweek death in Cape Town of his father Harry after a long battle with cancer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is a brilliant guy and (his decision to stay in New Zealand) shows how much the Springboks mean to him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is quite personal. I am not walking in his shoes. I do not know where he is at mentally. All we could do from our side was support him as much as we could.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had another player who is going through the same thing,&#8221; added the coach, referring to scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse grieving the recent death of his father Brian.<\/p>\n<p>A shoulder injury prevented Hendrikse being considered for the Auckland Test, but he is expected to be available for World Cup selection, with the 33-man squad to be named on 8 August.<\/p>\n<p>After the Championship, South Africa will play Argentina in Buenos Aires, Wales in Cardiff and New Zealand in London in warm-up matches ahead of the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa are in Pool B with Scotland, Romania, Ireland, currently the top ranked Test nation, and Tonga and the section winners and runners-up qualify for the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>Should the reigning world champions reach the last eight, they are likely to face second-ranked France or New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\">South-Africa<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. A brilliant start by the All Blacks saw them score two tries and 17 points in as many minutes against the error-strewn Rugby World Cup title-holders in Auckland on Saturday. South Africa are renowned as set-piece maestros, but all they did in the opening quarter was concede penalties, miss tackles, and lose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":51477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[274,315,587,2808,275,590,1177],"class_list":["post-51479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-championship","tag-south-africa-2","tag-springboks","tag-steven-kitshoff"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&#039;It felt like we were chasing ghosts,&#039; says Springbok Kitshoff - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A brilliant start by the All Blacks saw them score two tries and 17 points in as many minutes against the error-strewn R ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/it-felt-like-we-were-chasing-ghosts-says-springbok-kitshoff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;It felt like we were chasing ghosts,&#039; 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