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'Both teams deserve a lot of credit': Ian Foster reacts to record loss
By Ned Lester
The Springboks impressed everyone with their 35-7 win over the All Blacks at Twickenham, including New Zealand coach Ian Foster.
Foster's team were dismantled by the South African forward pack and fell to their largest-ever defeat just two weeks out from the Rugby World Cup.
Amongst the mountain of set-piece penalties, the All Blacks also coughed the ball up with numerous handling errors.
Despite the hefty loss, Foster entered his post match interview with a smile on his face.
"You couldn't help but be impressed with what they did," he said. "They really got stuck into us."
"I thought their physicality and particularly their set piece, they obviously had a massive game up front, lineout time, scrum time, and that was the big difference."
The game never strayed far from the set piece, handing the Springboks plenty of opportunities to inflict damage on a struggling New Zealand pack.
The South African pack was not just huge in stature but in numbers, having seven forwards on the bench to bring on all at once. Foster had
"It certainly helped them today. We went with a 6-2 split and we needed that.
"I think both teams deserve a lot of credit, they put a lot into that game and it was a great spectacle.
"Two weeks out from a World Cup I think it's going to prepare us both really, really well but it was a massive performance I thought by South Africa and they really deserve a lot of credit for it."
A red card to Scott Barrett and an injury to Tyrel Lomax are likely to leave both players sidelined for a period.
Foster said Lomax had sustained a deep gash in his thigh from a boot sprig. The team will have to wait and see whether either player will miss game time moving forward.
"That's test matches, it doesn't take anything away from, I think that both teams probably needed the game, we certainly did and you saw that.
"Even though we made lots of changes, we lost the cohesion and got put under a lot of pressure.
"But what I will say is that I know they came out of the blocks but I thought our 20 (minutes), our defence was outstanding and if we'd had more discipline in some key areas, we could of actually, counter punched there but they forced us into issues and that's what created problems."
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Latest Comments
This article overlooks how the 9 position has developed to be a playmaker, which these 2 are both excellent at. Defences are so good now there is not the luxury of going 9 -> 10 on every play. Playing “off 9” as they say, has become very commonplace these days, but 10+ years ago you hardly saw this. Boiling the great modern 9s down to box kicking doesn’t do justice to how good the great ones have become. Dupont would be the first choice 10 in most teams in the world, JGP pops up in places you would never expect a 9 to be.
Go to commentsThe banning of the croc roll will make carrying the ball into contact far more risky, leading to more kicking, and the change to the Dupont law will mean forwards have to do far more running than they do now. As a result I think there will be a rise of smaller, more mobile forwards who are strong defenders and strong over the ball like Kirifi.
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