Tandy bitterly disappointed by South Africa drubbing

Wales head coach Steve Tandy says he was bitterly disappointed to finish the season with a 43-0 hammering by South Africa.

Tandy’s side failed to score a single point once more against the Springboks, who ran out convincing Nations Championship winners in Durban.

The world champions won their previous meeting 73-0 in November when Wales conceded 11 tries and suffered their heaviest home defeat.

South Africa were nowhere near as ruthless on home soil, but still scored seven tries with Jasper Wiese, Cobus Reinach, Jesse Kriel, Jaco Williams, Herschel Jantjies, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Paul de Villiers crossing.

“I am bitterly disappointed with the scoreline,” said Tandy.

“I commend the team around the effort, they stayed in the fight for large parts of the game.

“There’s massive pride in our players, how hard they work and the effort they put in, up against the world champions.”

Tandy was asked about the failure to score against South Africa for a second successive time with the aggregate score in the past two games 116-0.

“It was pretty one-sided when it comes to us defending and getting the ball,” he admitted.

“Probably the one or two moments we did get an opportunity weren’t accurate enough.

“Whether it be a knock-on or whether there was space we didn’t take it and then we probably could have been a bit more ruthless when we had three or four penalties in a row, but we didn’t take that.

“South Africa are physical at the breakdown, they’re a well-oiled defensive unit as well.

“So there’s lots of things that we’ll have to get better at and grow again.”

Wales captain ‘proud’ of squad

Despite the result, Wales captain Dewi Lake said he was massively proud of his troops.

“Some people might be shocked with me saying that with the scoreboard looking as it does, but there is a lot of improvement in that,” he added.

“You compare that performance to the performance in the autumn against the Springboks.

“We’re not happy with the nil on the scoreboard, we’re not happy with losing, there’s a lot for us to improve on, but we’ve had growth.

“I’m proud of every single one of those boys that pulled the jersey on and gave everything on that field.”