Was it a true test match?

The Springboks finally broke the shackles after four straight Tri-Nations defeats by outclassing Australia and overcoming a 0-14 deficit after four dreadful opening minutes in the Tri-Nations match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

The score line of 44-31 is less emphatic than the sound of it. South Africa will travel to Bloemfontein for Saturday’s game with two missions: to improve on their defensive effort on Saturday, and to use the ball-in-hand tactic more often, especially in the final 30 minutes. According to SuperSport, both teams slipped 38 tackles on Saturday, while the Sydney Morning Herald claimed the Boks missed 40 tackles and Australia 26.

Peter de Villiers, the national coach, said after the poor defensive performance that the Boks possess a brilliant defensive system.

"When we analyse defensive lapses we have to look further than missed tackles or mistakes that are made by individuals. We have to look at what events in the play led to that situation. It could be that the opposition was quicker on attack than we anticipated or that a player was out of line in the defensive pattern.

"The Wallabies put us under pressure and forced us into mistakes. We have to go back and look at what we can do to better deal with that pressure,” he told SuperSport.

South Africa looked dangerous when they attacked with ball in hand, and not when they reverted back to their out-dated and ineffective aerial assaults.

Without Fourie du Preez, whose execution of the up-and-under was near perfect, South Africa simply offered Australia turn-over possession when they kicked.

One superb example was when Francois Hougaard kicked after 30 seconds, only to see the Wallabies score from the resulting movement.

But when South Africa used the ball and recycled it through several phases, they had the Australian defenders at sixes and sevens, as Pierre Spies demonstrated after he collected a brilliant pass from Hougaard to score in the first half.

Mark Keohane, in Business Day, was unimpressed with the nine tries. He said: “Maybe there is a bit more love between these two sides, given the willingness to massage each other’s attacking egos in an opening 20 minutes in which players from both teams mocked the ethos of test rugby.

“There are those who will think Saturday’s nine tries represented a thriller and one of the great games between these two countries, but I can’t count myself among them. I’d like to think of test rugby as a contest where one guy runs hard and the other attempts to tackle. This was a sham.”

De Villiers admitted that the Bok-management will need to manage some of the senior players better as they look towards their final Tri-Nations test against the Wallabies in Bloemfontein.

He dismissed the notion that there were fitness issues in the team.

"There is nothing wrong with the fitness," the Bok coach said, adding: "Most of them have over 2000 playing minutes for the year.

"Yes, they are a bit overplayed.

"The accumulation of all those minutes [playing and training in the Super 14 and tests] gets to the legs, so we need to manage them."

Habana, according to De Villiers, has played 2200 minutes this year. Tim Noakes, the Cape Town-based sport scientist, has said the average per year for an international player should be between 1400 and 1600 minutes.

This begs the question why South Africa has not managed the senior Boks better in the first half of the year. It is worth zero to complain bitterly about the way they have been  manhandled by the Super 14 coaches and to pay lip service about their management for the rest of the year, yet as a South African coach you have failed to rest them in the tests against Italy, Wales and France.

The fact that John Smit was substituted after 60 minutes at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday and Habana was below-average are perfect examples of what happens to quality when international stars are mismanaged, abused and manhandled instead of nurtured wisely.

South Africa will most probably use their full bench on Saturday and opt for a pragmatic approach, oscillating between the use of kicks out of hand and full-scale attack.

Robbie Deans, the Australian coach, said after Saturday’s match that South Africa and Australia were not that far behind New Zealand in terms of their styles and game-plans.

Yet, one has to beg to differ. The experienced and settled All Blacks would probably have buried South Africa if they were leading 21-7 halfway through the first half as Australia were.

And Australia’s inability to put away the Boks when they were hanging on for dear life, must be questioned.

Prediction for Saturday: Boks will probably win by between three and five points.

Motivation: The Boks will opt for rush-defence and will also endeavour to protect possession with more intensive ball-recycling and for longer periods.

Default mode: Australia would probably opt for full-scale attack. Expect a more attacking approach by South Africa, especially in the final 15 minutes.