Springbok captain Jean de Villiers left embarrassed after Argentina loss
Last Updated: 09/08/15 11:44am
Springboks captain Jean de Villiers slammed his team’s performance as they lost to Argentina for the first time in their history.
Argentina wing Juan Imhoff scored a hat-trick of tries as the Pumas claimed a first victory over South Africa with a 37-25 success in their Rugby Championship match at King's Park on Saturday.
The Springboks, who will have plenty of soul-searching to do ahead of next month's World Cup in England, were sloppy and disjointed against an Argentina side more intelligent in their execution and dominant in every facet of the game.
Centre Marcelo Bosch scored Argentina's other try, and added a long-range penalty and a drop-goal, with experienced fly-half Juan Martin Hernandez, playing his first test of 2015, landing four conversions and a penalty.
South Africa scored tries through lock Lood de Jager, full-back Willie le Roux and wing Bryan Habana, with out of sorts fly-half Handre Pollard kicking two penalties and two conversions.
But they were no match for Argentina.
"I would say that is a pretty embarrassing performance," said De Villiers after the game.
"A lot of credit to Argentina and the way that they played – they played really well. They scored a couple of tries from first phase which is just not acceptable from our point of view.
"There is a lot for us to work on and I think we need to take a deep look at ourselves and definitely put in better performances than this because it was just not good enough. There are no excuses, we were just not good enough on the day.
"As a group we are bitterly disappointed and we did not do the jersey justice today."
