'Win the World Cup or be failures', Heyneke Meyer tells Springboks
Sunday 18 October 2015 11:43, UK
Heyneke Meyer insists South Africa's World Cup campaign will only be judged a success if they lift the trophy on 31 October.
The Springboks began the competition with a humiliating 34-32 defeat to Japan, one of the greatest shocks in sporting history, let alone rugby union history.
Since then though, they have been improving steadily, winning all their remaining Pool matches to finish top of the group.
And on Saturday afternoon they dumped Wales out of the competition, winning a bitterly-contested match 23-19 at Twickenham to reach the semi-finals.
Next up though are the tournament favourites, New Zealand, who smashed France 62-13 in Cardiff in devastating fashion.
The Boks have beaten the All Blacks just twice in their last 12 meetings, but Meyer is setting their sights high.
"As South Africans, we believe only a [tournament] win is good enough. There's no reason why we can't, but obviously it's not going to be easy," he said.
"The most important thing for us now is to recover. Mentally it has been tough for us in every game since the first one [against Japan].
"I hope people write us off again, that seems to work. We have said from day one that if you want to win the World Cup you have to be able to beat every other team.
"The margins in this competition are so small. Every single team has a quality coach. We all plan well, we all look at videos, we all study each other and as a coach you know what's coming. You prepare for it, but it is about how the team executes on the day that makes the difference."
