‘Game of inches’: Dave Rennie reflects on what decided Springboks clash

All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie believes his side have plenty of positives to take out of their narrow defeat at the hands of the Springboks in Cape Town.

Rennie’s side finished the game the stronger of the two sides, but trailed the whole 80 minutes at DHL Stadium, after the Springboks got off to a hot start.

The All Blacks struggled at lineout time, but improved the much-discussed scrum, which gained parity in the second Test.

Speaking to former All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall, Rennie reflected on the contest.

“Oh, I’m massively proud of the effort,” Rennie told Sky Sport.

“We’ll lick our wounds, but there’s a lot of positive stuff out tonight. We’re confident we can bounce back.

“Now, we’re under the pump and a fair way behind on the scoreboard late in the piece, so huge amount of courage.

“There’s big chunks of game where we defended well, and we created a lot of opportunities, and maybe a couple in the first half we’d have taken advantage of might have been a different picture.

Rennie, who fell to his first defeat as All Blacks head coach, credited the Boks for their bounce-back.

“But South Africa were good tonight. Now they’re really physical, and yeah, stopped a lot of our momentum.”

When asked about where he felt the game got away from the visitors, Rennie pinpointed the discipline that allowed the hosts to go up in threes.

“Well, discipline. The penalties were 10 all, so it’s probably where the penalties were.

“They got a couple down our end, especially late in the piece, and Cheslin Kolbe was able to kick those. So we’ll have a look at that.

“We lost a couple of lineouts tonight. We had a lot of lineouts. So yeah, look, it’s such a game of inches, and we had our chances.

“And but like I said, you know, you got to take your hat off to South Africa. They were very physical, and you know, against a good side you got to hurt them when you get enough opportunities.”