The Springboks had to weather a fiercely committed onslaught from Argentina in front of 44 357 fans at Emirates Airline Park, when they spent long periods penned in their own half in the second half on the way to securing a second victory in the truncated competition.
Springbok skipper Vermeulen admitted that the team had made their task more difficult for themselves with ill-discipline.
“It was a stop-start game for us, and I think our discipline wasn’t great,” said Vermeulen.
“Sometimes penalties just happen and then you get those avoidable penalties that you shouldn’t give away and that was tough for us. If you take away those avoidable penalties it would have been a better game for us.
“You’ve got to give credit to Argentina. We saw how they won against Australia and against us in Durban last year they came back with a real onslaught and scored a couple of late tries. They play for 80 minutes. and we had to keep up but we’re happy with the win and we’ll take it from there.”