AFTER FINISHING TOP of their pool with a perfect record — scoring 21 tries in the process — South Africa went into their 2011 quarter-final with Australia full of confidence that they could defend the World Cup.
However, despite dominating possession (about 70%), the Springboks would lose the last-eight encounter 11-9, with much of the South African anger post-match focused on the performance of referee Bryce Lawrence.
It was enough to drive the two-time world champions to drink.
“We had a lot of bottles of red wine and discussed that match more than any other,” Schalk Burger told reporters.
“It’s a memory that still haunts us till this day. It’s one of those games where if we played it again we would win nine out 10 of them.”
“At the end of the day we were under scoreboard pressure and the main thing we learnt was that if you don’t take your chance then you lose. Hopefully we won’t have that feeling again on Saturday.”
Despite their shock opening game defeat to Japan, South Africa still emerged top of Pool B this time around and will look to take advantage of an injury-depleted Wales side when the pair meet in Twickenham on Saturday afternoon.
The 32-year old believes the games provides the prefect opportunity to hit ‘reset’ on what has been a roller-coaster World Cup campaign so far.
“It’s pretty much been like my career, up and down. We started with the most famous loss in world rugby against Japan, after that I will admit the last two weeks have been toughest of my Springbok career.
“Lucky for us we turned a corner and regrouped to get a quarter-final spot.
“What’s important now is we push the reset button after that first loss and now we need to focus on winning a quarter-final. It won’t be easy with both teams trying to achieve the same thing but there is a lot of excitement in this group.”
