The Springbok Women have a lot of work to do before they can become a force on the international stage, and start challenging for the World Cup.
This was the view of performance coach Swys de Bruin after their narrow 23-19 defeat to Italy in their WXV 2 clash at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon.
South Africa finished their WXV 2 campaign in fourth place, with one win — against Japan — from their three games.
Despite Saturday’s loss, the performance on the day showed that the women in green and gold have come in leaps and bounds over the years.
“We really showed that we can play with these teams and even beat them and that is very encouraging as we move towards next year’s Rugby World Cup,” De Bruin said after Saturday’s encounter in the Mother City.
“We could have easily won today and against the Aussies, but in reality we just did not use enough of the multiple chances we created. As frustrating as it is, so encouraging it is as we are miles away from being the best version of ourselves, but yet we took those teams to the last play of the game.
“We can certainly improve in certain areas and fine-tune other aspects of our play. There are very strong principles in this team that are in place already, but we are getting bogged down by others that are not good.
“We will have to be much better in those and the next couple of months and into next year the focus will be about that so that will be a more complete team when we are playing international rugby again in April.”
De Bruin did, however, say he believed the team would be able to face whatever challenge was thrown at them at World Cup in England next year.
“I am confident that this group can go on and make the country proud next year, providing that we work really hard in the next 11 months before we are off to England.”
IOL Sport