Back to the drawing board for the Springboks

South Africa headed home from New Zealand yesterday quietly seething about a decision they publicly refused to condemn and no doubt thinking they had learned some valuable lessons about how to negate the All Blacks at home.

The Springboks were on a nine-match winning streak and had arrived in New Zealand confident of tipping over the All Blacks at their Eden Park fortress in Auckland.

The match was touted as the most important in New Zealand since the 2011 World Cup final and the visitors bristled with aggression, most notably hooker Bismarck du Plessis whose no-nonsense style resulted in a red card in the 29-15 loss to the world champions.

Both coach Heyneke Meyer and captain Jean de Villiers refused to be drawn on the decisions of referee Romain Poite with De Villiers particularly hard on his own side despite their numerical disadvantage for 50 minutes of the game.

"We have to look at the way we performed because that was not a performance that was good enough to compete with them," De Villiers said. "I felt we let our country down."

The nature of the match and the way in which the All Blacks soaked up the Springboks' pressure suggested they may have won the game even if Du Plessis had not been sent off.

But the visitors learned some valuable lessons for the return clash at Ellis Park on October 5.