The Springboks should still be celebrating a performances for the ages that saw them inflict the biggest ever defeat on the All Blacks, while it also catapulted South Africa back to the top of the world rankings and saw them retain the Freedom Cup for the second year in a row.
However, Rassie Erasmus has already said they need to keep their feet on the ground with a tough task ahead against Argentina in their remaining two Rugby Championship matches in Durban and London.
There are also a number of injury concerns after the likes of Lood de Jager, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Aphelele Fassi, Cheslin Kolbe and Cobus Reinach all left the field with issues of some kind on Saturday.
“We do have a couple of injuries, which we do not know the extent of yet, but the two that appear to be serious are Lood (de Jager) and Aphelele (Fassi),” Erasmus commented.
Fassi was seen wearing a moon boot after the game, while De Jager appeared to have been injured in contact.
Springboks now shift focus
The Springboks will make the journey back to South Africa in the early hours of Sunday morning and will reassemble in camp on Thursday.
The Springboks may have reclaimed the top spot on the world rankings with this victory, but Erasmus was careful to let the victory cloud the team’s judgement about the challenge ahead against Argentina, who edged Australia 28-26 in their round-four encounter in Sydney earlier on Saturday.
“We’ve achieved nothing,” said Erasmus.
“Everyone is still in the competition, and we will still have to face a well-drilled Argentina outfit in the next few weeks.
“We made a few errors in the first 30 minutes, and we have no doubt New Zealand will pick themselves up from this result. We’ll enjoy this one and start looking at Argentina from tomorrow.”
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