Australia captain James Slipper wants his Wallabies team mates to remember the pain inflicted on them by South Africa on Saturday as the world champions claimed a 24-8 Rugby Championship win over their hosts in Sydney.
The Springboks bounced back from a defeat against the Australians in Adelaide on Aug. 27 to hand Dave Rennie’s side their second loss in this year’s Southern Hemisphere competition.
“I want the boys to hurt. Yes, South Africa were good, but I felt like we didn’t play much rugby at all,” said Slipper.
“We wanted to review last week and be a better rugby team. At no stage should we think we’re the finished product.
“Individually we need to look at ourselves. I’m confident we’re tracking in the right direction. We just need a bit more polish. We need to execute under pressure.”
The matches against South Africa came after the Australians opened their Rugby Championship campaign with a loss and a win against Argentina.
Those results, coupled with Saturday’s defeat, put the Wallabies on nine points, leaving Rennie’s side one point behind table-toppers New Zealand in the standings.
Australia are due to face the All Blacks in their final two Rugby Championship matches later this month. Slipper is hoping he and his team mates can inject some stability into their performance in the coming weeks.
“It’s tough when you’re walking off the field after a loss, but we’ve got a lot of confidence in the group that we have,” he said.
“We’re after consistency and that’s the big driver for us and when we start seeing that I feel that we’ll see success coming our way.”
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