South Africa confident of improvement in return clash with Wallabies

SYDNEY : South Africa are confident they can improve on a series of slow starts and inability to finish after dominating possession when they face Australia in their Rugby Championship clash in Sydney on Saturday, assistant coach Deon Davids said on Monday.

The world champions suffered a 25-17 defeat by the Wallabies in Adelaide on Saturday in the first of two successive tests in Australia, going behind early and failing to press home their advantage when they had try-scoring opportunity.

"We would like to start our games with intensity but obviously you cannot always predict that you're going have a good start, you can just pitch up with the right attitude and do your best," Davids told a virtual news conference.

"Unfortunately, the bounce of the ball, at times, didn't go our way but we confident that we can turn that around."

The Springboks trailed 25-3 just past the hour mark in Adelaide but forwards coach Davids said they could draw positives from two late tries.

"We're quite proud in terms of the way that the players did not give up which gives hope we can shine this weekend," he added.

"We believe in our game plan and you could see that our game plan created a lot of chances but unfortunately, we did not capitalise on that. And the biggest lesson for us in that is just to work harder, to get better rewards.”

The Springboks also met their match in the mauls but front- row forward Steven Kitshoff said it would remain an important part of their approach.

"Even though our maul didn't get a lot of momentum, we still got six penalty advantages that we could possibly play from," he said. "So in my opinion, I still feel the mauls are a big weapon and a big part of the fundamentals of rugby."

(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town;