Habana: we must not dwell on negatives

BRYAN HABANA will not be using an epic journey from South Africa to Dublin, or any other mitigating circumstances, as excuses should the Springboks leave the Aviva Stadium with a defeat on Saturday night.

Twenty-five hours it took to get from South Africa’s training camp on the High Veldt to the reception desk at their Dublin hotel and all just two days before a Test match with Ireland.

Last Saturday’s Currie Cup final, in which the Western Province wing and former World Player of the Year played on the losing side, South Africa’s annual rugby awards night on Monday and sponsorship commitments on Tuesday all contributed to the late arrival of a Springboks squad missing 13 players through injury after a trying summer campaign.

But Habana said his team could not afford to dwell on negatives. “We can’t use any excuses, we can’t use the weather, or flying out on Wednesday, or the referees,” he said.

“We’ve got to come out there and stand up to our man. This whole tour is about no excuses. Our plan has to be to focus on just Saturday.

“We have some recovery sessions ongoing today. We have massages, the backs have a couple of sessions with the new guys to see where we’re going and what we want to achieve. A lot of the hard planning was done during the week. We got together on Sunday evening and worked through things slowly but surely.

“We knew it was going to be a tough week but from tomorrow, it’s not only boots on, switched on, we need to be mentally focused.”

Particularly as South Africa will go in search of their first victory over Ireland in Dublin since 2000. That’s three Test defeats, at the old Lansdowne Road in 2004 and 2006 and last year at Croke Park.

“It’s been quite a while. We had a home series victory in 2004 when Jake White took over but the biggest thing we have learned is coming over to the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the year, it’s sort of the halfway part of their season so they are quite fresh whereas mentally we’ve got to make the mindset of ‘we’re not tired’.

“Every time we have come here, Ireland have raised their performances a couple of notches to compete against us. Physically, they have really done their homework. Last year their line-out and set-plays really set them apart so it’s going to be a tough Test.

“Ireland have upped the pace and the intensity every time in the last three meetings. I’m looking forward to what’s going to be a titanic clash on Saturday, from a back-line point of view and especially up front. We definitely have to raise the bar if we are to have any chance of being successful this weekend.”