Following his team’s 45-point demolition of visiting Irish side Munster in a cracker of a Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday, head coach JP Pietersen declared himself thrilled with his team’s performance, despite a couple of sleepless nights beforehand.
“To win 45-nil against a good and proud Munster side with a rich history is a memory I’ll cherish for life. Luan Giliomee playing his first game, Makazole Mapimpi playing in his 100th game, it was beautiful how it worked out for them both on the same day.”
Despite the disruptions to the team’ preparations, with Ethan Hooker pulling out on family reasons and Siya Kolisi pulling his calf, the side pulled together and showed just what they are capable of.
“It was a challenging couple of nights before the game,” Pietersen admitted. “I hardly slept, so to get a performance like that is something very special.”
Scoring 45 points in a game is one thing, but keeping your opponents scoreless is quite something else.
“If you compare this to the Loftus game, it was day and night. I challenged the players to bring the effort. They did that and credit to coach Joey Mongalo who puts hours and hours of effort in; he’s a good defence coach.
“The players can only show how good he is if they buy in to his methods. I challenged them before the game to show how physical they could be and they showed that. You could see afterwards, the boys were out on their feet, but that showed pride in the badge and how badly they want to prove a point.
“To not concede a try is really special, especially in a VURC game.”
Pietersen also had a few words of praise for his centurion, saying, “He showed that he still has speed and has plenty of rugby left in him. He’s a special human being, he’s shown it over and over again, and at his age to still be that fast shows how professional he is.
“He’s one of my favourite players. He showed his class, but there’s still a lot in him and I’ll keep challenging him to give more.”
Talking generally, he also praised how his pack has worked together, delivering a classy collective effort on the day.
“They’ve built cohesion, it’s about connection and you could see in this game that they wanted to dominate. They wanted to make a statement and they did that.
“We must give credit to the starters and the bench, they wanted to do something special.”
Philosophically, Pietersen acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to be done as the tournament builds towards the knock-outs, explaining that, “We’ve moved up the log after this victory, but we’re still way off the top eight.
“But if you look at this performance, we don’t look like a team in the bottom half, so while we’ll celebrate this victory, there will be a hard review before a quick turnaround, with Cardiff on Friday night.”