Co-head coaches Laurian Johannes-Haupt and Franzel September have drawn encouragement from the Springbok Women's performance despite a 52-20 defeat to New Zealand at FNB Stadium on Saturday, pointing to four tries scored against the world's second-ranked side and sustained periods of dominance throughout the match.
Johannes-Haupt highlighted the scrum as a particular area of strength. "We pride ourselves on our scrum and today it was very powerful again," she said. "We are tweaking our play here and there as we want to keep evolving and as we saw today, not everything worked perfectly. However, we are happy with where we are now, and we will leave on our tour to Europe with good confidence."
September was candid about the errors that gifted the Black Ferns several soft tries but framed them as necessary data points rather than cause for alarm. "We played well at times and made mistakes at times, so there is more than enough work-ons for us to keep us honest. We have progressed well though and I believe there has been good improvement in our season," he said, citing growth across the Rugby Africa Women's Cup campaign, the USA Tests and the Fiji tour.
The squad reassembles in Stellenbosch on Wednesday, with the touring party for Tests against Wales, Italy and Spain to be confirmed once medical assessments on several players have been completed.