Bok, Pumas mentors upbeat despite Ellis Park scrap: 'You have to grind out results in World Cup'

Saturday's Rugby Championship outing at Ellis Park between the Springboks and Argentina was seen from a glass-half-full perspective by the respective coaches Jacques Nienaber and Michael Cheika.

Nienaber, who coached the Boks for the last time on home soil before next week's warm-up fixture against the Pumas in Buenos Aires before they get their World Cup machinery ready for departure on 12 August, said the players will have taken crucial lessons from the 22-21 win.

The Boks finished the game with 14 players after Damian de Allende was sin-binned for a deliberate knockdown, while scrumhalf Grant Williams was invalidated out of the game in the first 10 seconds after Argentine fullback Juan Cruz Mallia collided with him after attempting a charge-down.

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Nienaber said the players will know that World Cup games are more of a grind than a coasting, with Saturday's game being one of those that'll come in handy in France from 8 September onwards.

"It wasn't pretty, and I will agree," Nienaber said.

"We had to grind out the win, which is something I'm glad for ... to be put under pressure like this [is good] because we'll experience similar conditions in the World Cup.

"To manage it like this, with the yellow card and the amount of attitude the players showed on defence, I felt it was outstanding.

"There were tactical and technical mistakes that we can fix and for me, those are the easy things that can be fixed.

"You have to grind out results in the World Cup."

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Cheika felt his side could have made more of the Boks' unusual vulnerability at Ellis Park, but also looked