South Africa's use of the entire bench opened the door for the British and Irish Lions' fightback as the Springboks were forced to hang on for a 26-21 victory in the first test, coach Peter de Villiers said yesterday.
The world champions led 26-7 after 50 minutes when De Villiers began making replacements, using all seven reserves in the next 20 minutes.
"We scored points but we never really looked in control. I thought we looked a bit flat, so I tried to inject some enthusiasm and speed into our game. It didn't happen that way and maybe it was too much, too soon," he told a news conference.
One replacement that did work well for the hosts, however, was the return to the fray of captain John Smit for the final four minutes. The Lions had closed the gap to five points when Smit swapped with the injured Deon Carstens, who had come on for him earlier.
"It wasn't part of any plan, Deon hurt his shoulder, but I was happy to get back on and calm the ship," Smit said. "The Lions were coming in waves and we just needed to get our hands on the ball."
De Villiers was full of praise for the Lions, who outscored the Springboks by three tries to two.
"You know, this is a brilliant Lions side, they know what they are doing and they never lie down," he said. "We will need to work on our defence because the cohesion was not there and the guys need to trust each other more. We also need to concentrate for the full 80 minutes."
South Africa used a dominant scrum and superb driving mauls to gain their early control, with loosehead Tendai Mtawarira giving Phil Vickery a torrid time and Smit having no problems adapting to his move from hooker to tighthead.
"I love it when people want to believe that we have a weakness at tighthead. I know John Smit is a brilliant scrummager and I was always believing our scrummaging would be great today," De Villiers said.
Lions coach Ian McGeechan and captain Paul O'Connell had a different view of the scrum, where they were bemused by New Zealand referee Bryce Lawrence's penalty count against them.
"The referee was saying that Phil kept going in but he's a very experienced prop and how he can be considered to make the same mistake five or six times in a row is beyond me," O'Connell said.
McGeechan said the issue would be raised through the refereeing protocol, where both teams' observations are reviewed by the IRB's referee manager Paddy O'Brien.
"It all comes down to interpretation. We will try to get an explanation as it's obviously very important for next week," he said.
"Giving away those penalties and not finishing off all those opportunities meant we gave ourselves a mountain to climb."
The Lions had two tries ruled out by the TV match official and just missed another when the ball was knocked out of winger Ugo Monye's hands as he dived for the line.
"The disappointment overall comes from the fact that we played so well," McGeechan said. Some of the rugby we were playing was outstanding."
