Matfield downplays record

Cardiff - After winning a World Cup, the Tri-Nations, repeated Super 14 titles and a series against the British and Irish Lions, scoring a try on his national-record 103rd appearance for South Africa was just another day in the office for Victor Matfield.

The 33-year-old lock surpassed the caps record he held jointly with Percy Montgomery and John Smit when he led the Springboks out against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday - and marked the occasion with a rare try in his team's 29-25 win.

It was the perfect way for one of the world's leading players of the past decade to celebrate reaching such a milestone but Matfield preferred to put any personal plaudits to one side.

"I said it during the week, I'm really not the guy to speak about records and things like that," he said.

"It's a great honor to play so many tests for your country and hopefully I can get a few more if the coach keeps picking me. It's just nice to be involved in a winning team at the moment."

Standing in for regular captain Smit, who was absent from South Africa's end-of-year tour because of a neck injury, Matfield inspired the team to come back from 17-9 down at halftime against the Welsh. He scored the Springboks' second try in a seven-minute spell just after the break that yielded 17 points and turned the game on its head.

The 54th-minute try, which came at the end of a multiphase move when he sliced through a gaping hole in an overstretched Welsh defense, was only his seventh in tests.

"If you keep hold of the ball, the gaps open up and luckily for me it opened up," Matfield said. "I don't score a lot of tries, so it's nice to get one for the team."

Matfield finished off that try like a back, symptomatic of a graceful player who has style and class written all over him despite most of his work coming in the boiler room of the Springboks pack.

The rangy lock, along with fellow second-row forward Bakkies Botha, has been one of the cornerstones of a South Africa team that has been at the forefront of international rugby for the past five years. He has been the world's dominant lineout jumper in that period, no more so than during the 2007 World Cup, when he was voted the International Rugby Board's player of the tournament as his team swept to its second title.

If you add that award to a resume that includes two Tri-Nations titles, three Super 14 championships, three Currie Cups and a series win over the Lions in 2009, Matfield has seen it all and done it all.

"The one thing about Victor is that he's a team man," South Africa coach Peter de Villiers said on Saturday. "I think for him tonight it's more about him winning with 22 players around him than having him get a milestone and everyone be unhappy (by losing).

"We are blessed to have people like him. I told him the day before this game, 'You know what, you bring calmness upon myself that I can't handle.' I have to get used to it."

Matfield has little left to prove in his stellar career but helping the Springboks win another World Cup, in New Zealand next year, would be the ideal way to bow out.

De Villiers' side has had a year to forget, losing five out of six matches in the Tri-Nations where it finished bottom. Many of the team's leading players have struggled for form while injury problems have plagued the squad to such an extent that 13 regulars are missing for its European tour.

Matfield continues to lead by example, however, and it is currently under his guidance that the Springboks are looking to emerge from their slump.

Successive tour victories _ the win over Wales followed a tight 23-21 success against Ireland in Dublin last weekend _ means a first Grand Slam of the home unions since 1961 is still on.

"We are happy with the way things are going at the moment," Matfield said. "When we came over, there were a lot of people who said we'd be lucky to win one game on tour so we are taking it week by week.

"It's a really happy team and we are enjoying the tour. It's about experience. We have a lot of guys missing but it gives a chance to others and we're looking at these guys to step up to the leader positions."