Humble Henry proud of his boys
Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:29
All Black coach Graham Henry accepted the Springboks deserved their historic 30-28 Tri-Nations win over New Zealand in Dunedin on Saturday, saying his side could only learn from their defeat.
The Springboks pulled off a come-from-behind win in the second of back-to-back Tri-Nations matches - having lost the first 8-19 a week earlier - to regain their number one world ranking and underscore their world champions tag.
It was the first ever Springbok win at Carisbrook, broke a 10-year Bok losing streak in New Zealand and also ended the All Blacks' 30-match home winning streak .
"I don't think at this level anyone likes to be beaten, and we certainly didn't go out with that attitude," Henry said.
"The guys, I think, will learn a lot from this match. There's a lot of players in this side who haven't played a lot of Test match rugby and they will grow immensely from this."
Henry was in no doubt who made the difference.
"You couldn't have got a better Test match. They pulled it out of the fire I guess through a great play by Ricky Januarie late in the game," he said of the match-winning sore.
It was a brilliant try by Januarie, after captain Victor Matfield had been yellow carded for a high tackle, and a sweetly struck Francois Steyn conversion that saw the Boks come back to sneak the victory.
"I'm proud of our guys. They showed huge attitude, they played their best half of rugby this year in the second half but we didn't quite clinch it.
"We couldn't do much more - I'm generally pleased but we couldn't get the result. We played with huge hearts and great skill but were left disappointed," said Henry.
A visibly despondent Rodney So'oialo felt his team didn't play in the Boks' half enough.
"We didn't play the territory well enough and that cost us. You saw we didn't give up but the Boks took their chances," said So'oialo.
