Scoring four tries against the second-ranked team in women’s rugby and holding sway for large parts of their Test against the Black Ferns have left the Springbok Women coaches feeling positive about their progress in 2026.
Laurian Johannes-Haupt and Franzel September, the team’s co-head coaches, expressed satisfaction with the Bok Women’s performance against the six-time Rugby World Cup champions despite a 52-20 defeat at FNB Stadium on Saturday.
“I think we have established our credibility, especially in elements like our scrumming and forward play,” said Johannes-Haupt.
“We pride ourselves on our scrum, and today it was very powerful again. We are tweaking our play here and there as we want to keep evolving and as we saw today, not everything worked perfectly.
“However, we are happy with where we are now, and we will leave on our tour to Europe with good confidence.”
Johannes-Haupt thanked the Black Ferns for the occasion and congratulated them on their victory: “They play some very good rugby at times and showed us some shortcomings in our game. But that is the only way to improve, to learn from mistakes.”
September said they are not sugarcoating the errors made during the match, with some of those allowing the Black Ferns to score a number of easy tries.
“We played well at times and made mistakes at times, so there is more than enough work-ons for us to keep us honest,” said September.
“We have progressed well though, and I believe there has been good improvement in our season. We have also seen the growth of the players from those first performances in the Rugby Africa Women’s Cup, through the USA Tests and the tour to Fiji.
“Today’s match proved that we are progressing in the right direction. Scoring four tries against New Zealand was proof of that.”
The squad will have a short break before assembling in Stellenbosch on Wednesday, and September indicated that the squad for the Tests against Wales, Italy and Spain will be finalised following medical reports on some players.
