Koen applauds Springbok women's learning curve in Spain win

Springbok Women interim coach Louis Koen heaped praise on his squad for their ability to take good lessons onboard and implementing them against Spain on Saturday, a match that South Africa won by 35-20 in Madrid. 

Koen said players' willingness to learn from the mistakes in last weekend's defeat against Canada helped the team achieve their goal and finish their short European tour with a win.

“I really want to compliment the players,” said Koen.

“This victory was not achieved during the 80 minutes on the field only. It started last Sunday after the Canada defeat. The willingness from the players to improve from that performance was evident today, as we really made a step up in our second game of the year.”

The Springbok Women scored six tries in their win over Spain and, in the process, overhauled their hosts on the World Rugby rankings, moving to 12th position.

“We really started on the back foot against Canada last weekend, losing a player with a red card after five minutes,” said Koen. 

“We were scrambling for the remaining 75 minutes against the fourth-ranked team in the world and never got into the game.

“What was pleasing today is how we executed the things we planned to do, and that brought the results. Look, we still have issues with our discipline – we again gave away too many penalties today, and we need to be better with adjusting our tackle height – but those are work-ons for the future.”

Beating Spain for the first time abroad was a pleasing result, considering last week’s performance, according to the coach.

“The players have grown so much, we had four debutants last week, and this week they delivered exemplary performances,” he said.

“Shaunique Hess was brilliant today because she took everything onboard this week