Nienaber opens up on Boks' goal-kicking woes

REACTION: Springbok head coach Jacques Nienaber refused to blame his goal-kickers for Saturday's defeat to Ireland on Saturday.

The Springboks suffered a 16-19 defeat in a hard-fought encounter in Dublin, but they could have ended the match on top if they had a specialist kicker.

Damian Willemse, who started in the No.10 jersey, had a poor performance during the 80 minutes and his kicking to poles and out of hand played a role in that.

After slotting his first penalty, Willemse then pushed his second penalty horribly wide of the goal posts.

Cheslin Kolbe eventually took over the goal-kicking duties, but he was not much better.

The fullback missed two conversions in the second half.

"If people look at it, they will probably say that [goal-kicking] is the difference between the two teams," said Nienaber.

"Johnny [Sexton] also missed a kick or two, but he nailed the big ones.

"We missed a couple and it is something we will keep working on."

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The Boks will now head to France to face the Six Nations champions and there will be calls for Nienaber to include a recognised goal-kicker like Manie Libbok in the matchday squad.

However, it seems the Bok coach is backing Willemse and Kolbe to improve in that area during training.

"We are working on it. We actually measure their goal-kicking and they measure their own goal-kicking, so they know at what percentage they are kicking during the week," Nienaber explained.

"In one instance, Cheslin hit the post and sometimes it goes in. It is what it is and none of the goal-kickers go into a match to miss a goal

"Johnny [Sexton] nailed the big ones and we did not nail our big ones, but I will never blame the player for that.

"They must just keep on working on it."

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of talk about some questionable officiating from Georgian ref Nika Amashukeli during the match.

Bok fans were left frustrated with what looked like forward passes in the build-up to both of Ireland's tries in the match.

However, Bok captain Siya Kolisi had no problems with the ref's performance.

"I will obviously never blame the ref," said Kolisi.

"They [officials] said it was checked and there is nothing more I can do. I thought it was fair.

"I think Ireland played really well today [Saturday] and they deserve the victory."

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