Rugby: Habana urges his mates to raise their game

Bryan Habana insists Springboks can come back from disappointing first test. Photo / Getty Images

Super wing Bryan Habana believes the Springboks will need to raise their game by as much as 40 per cent if they want to tip the All Blacks over tomorrow.

Habana has an even-split win-loss ratio in his 12 tests against the All Blacks and knows plenty about his rivals, having played them more than any other side in his celebrated international career.

Like his comrades he nodded to the All Blacks' superiority in last weekend's match in Auckland, but he also cautioned that the Boks had not done themselves any justice in that opening Tri-Nations test.

They had been on the back foot from the moment Bakkies Botha was shown a yellow card and from there problems started to compound. The All Blacks had been extremely physical, but Habana and teammates expected nothing less. The hosts had played with greater intensity, Habana said, and the Springboks had disappointed.

"Part of the solution is hopefully attitude, but within that there are the individual roles we have to perform," Habana said. "The All Blacks have not been the consistent No 1 team in the world for the last six to seven years for nothing, so I think physicality is one department we have to step up in if we are to have a chance.

"But it has to be linked into our system, our defensive principles and at the end of the day the collisions are the ones we need to win to win the game."

The All Blacks had used their chances, they never relaxed and on attack showed they were the premier side in world rugby, Habana said.

This would be Habana's third test at the Cake Tin. He had not forgotten the rough weather in 2008, but that was all part of test rugby where you got to test yourself against the toughest opponents in the most difficult conditions.

The Boks did not want to repeat their hollow work from last week. Habana said that captain John Smit had been right when he likened the Bok performance to getting to the house and finding the lights on but no one at home.

It was always tough after a first test loss on tour, he said, but the thing about the Tri-Nations series was sides got another chance.

"We let ourselves down in the structures we wanted to impose on the first test," Habana said.

The tourists had to use the experience of men such as Danie Rossouw, who would be playing his 50th test, and Ricky Januarie, his 48th, experience which had made the Springboks successful in the last few years.

Smit was a great captain and motivator, Habana said, but could not and should not be relied upon to provide all the side's direction. Others need to step up such as Habana himself, Victor Matfield, Jean de Villiers, Schalk Burger - there was oodles of seniority throughout the side.

But for now Habana acknowledged the All Blacks were the gauge for international standards.

His own try-scoring feats had not been as plentiful as he would have liked in the past few seasons of test rugby, but defence and leadership were aspects of his game that were just as important.

He was not envious of the width with which the All Blacks played and their expression: "You have to understand your team system and for me the individualism is not going to be greater than the team system."

The Boks had a formula that worked for them and had brought them a World Cup and Tri-Nations title and the Super 14 crown for the Bulls.

"It is adapting to that system and we have licence to express ourselves. It is not a boxed-in system.

"The reason we allowed the All Blacks to look as good as they were, was because they found errors in our defensive system."