Bok fans want a 'winning team'

Veteran Springbok loose forward AJ Venter acknowledged on Saturday that his team felt under pressure from the public because of a series of five consecutive defeats this year and that helped them to lift themselves in the last two games of the Tri-Nations tournament.

The Boks still finished last in the 2006 version of the Tri-Nations, an expanded tournament of nine matches, but they managed a 21-20 win over the All Blacks and then finished with a 24-16 win over the Wallabies.

We bring you a collection of players' reactions from the Boks' win over the Wallabies on Saturday!

Man of the match Fourie du Preez: "I enjoyed it out there. I think the forwards laid a great platform for me to play from. They drove well and they scrummed well, so all credit to them.

"There was a lot of kicking going on [in the first half], because we went for field position. They [Australia] also went for field position a lot of the time. But Jake [White, the Bok coach] told us at half-time to take a few chances, throw the ball around a bit."

Replacement wing Breyton Paulse: "Things were tight when I came on [3-all at half-time] and we needed to change the game quite quickly. They were attacking us and we had to defend really well. But we stuck it out and when the opportunities came we took it very well.

"Today we really worked well as a unit and communicated very well. We went through a tough couple of weeks the last few weeks [losing the first four matches in the tournament] and well done to the guys for coming back and win those last two games."

Flank AJ Venter: "It was amazing. Two/three weeks ago we were really down. There was tremendous pressure from the public. Last week we only won with a point (21-20) and tonight we won with a few [points] more [24-16], but it fantastic to see the Springboks win. I'm happy to be part of it, it's just fantastic.

"The pressure [from the public] turned it around. When you come back home and you feel the pressure, it does lift you and make you aware of it. South Africans want victories, they don't want defeats ... be that with one point or 40 points. They want victories, so a lot of pressure from the public and from ourselves helped turn it around."

Prop Os du Randt: "It's been tough, especially after the five defeats. It's been hard work to pick ourselves up again and prove that we can still win. Just for the guys out there who believed in us and stuck with us, I want to say thank you.

"We just got the believe back that we can win. We worked really hard on our scrums, but we can still improve. Sometimes we were lazy, just going in there to get the phase over, rest a little bit and go work in the loose. But we made a big step up there."

Wallaby centre Stirling Mortlock: "It was a tough test. That's what we expected, that's exactly what we got. We (Nathan Sharpe and myself) would have like to have walked off in our 50th test matches with a win, but it wasn't meant to be. There is not much positive to take out of this game. Our preparation was almost flawless, and we went out there and put a pretty bad performance on the pitch. We'll review it and see what we can take out of it."