Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Pretoria – Deeply-embedded character steered South Africa to their Test and series win against the British and Irish Lions at Loftus here on Saturday, says captain John Smit.

The tighthead prop told Sport24 afterwards that the come-from-behind 28-25 triumph in a rollercoaster match, laced with controversy and brutal physicality, was a product of "character built up over a period of years".

"We speak about this a lot," he said, when asked about the degree to which experience in the ranks played a role in turning the match around. "We have an amazing ability to come out from very dark rooms."

"We have probably never had a worse start to a Test. Firm words were needed at half-time, and they obviously turned into much nicer words come full-time.

"They (the Lions) will be gutted to have lost it like they did. This was a proper Test, every inch for 80 minutes."

The British media, expectedly, placed heavy emphasis in questions at the post-match press conferences around refereeing and television match official decisions, as well as the first-minute incident which saw Schalk Burger yellow-carded when many pundits felt he was fortunate not to get red for allegedly eye-gouging Luke Fitzgerald.

Slightly overlooked, maybe, was the gritty manner in which the Springboks turned around their fortunes after staring down the barrel of likely defeat for lengthy periods.

They had been thoroughly outplayed in the first half, trailed 16-8 at the break and then 19-8 on the brink of the final quarter.

And this at a venue which, gallingly, sometimes appeared to have been annexed by masses of red-clad visiting supporters, getting into haunting choral mode when the Lions were on top and certainly eclipsing the bubble-gummy Afrikaans pop crudely blasted out on the stadium sound system to try to raise home passions.

Only this time, in a dramatic reversal of events in Durban a week earlier, it was the Boks' turn to finish the more strongly, finally discovering some prolonged composure, continuity and overdue verve too.

The fact remained that, bilious and out-witted as South Africa were for long stretches, the tourists did only cross for one try to the Boks'
three, and relied on the admirably metronomic boot of flyhalf Stephen Jones for the remainder of their points – 20 of them, in fact.

But the hosts had a Deadeye Dick in place-kicking terms up their sleeves as well, Morne Steyn the consummate cool customer as he came off the bench in the 61st minute, to an approving home-town roar, and sealed his own place in history with his series-winning penalty goal from behind halfway, on the hooter.

Visibly shattered and distracted losing captain Paul O’Connell conceded that the Lions lost their mojo after the interval: “We should have come out and played more rugby in the second half, after showing what we could do in the first.”

The early Burger incident dominated the grilling Bok coach Peter de Villiers got from the travelling press afterwards, and he did himself and his camp no favours with his rather dismissive, not to mention rank inarticulate, responses.

Asked whether it was a "vivid, clear-cut case of gouging", De Villiers replied tersely: “Ag, you know … sh*t man. This is sport, this is what it's all about. We shouldn't even try and prepare (for citing procedures, presumably) even … what people say is their opinion.

"There was lots of needle, the first minute of the game. To come back against great odds, hats off to the Springboks. This was a very good Lions team. There is only joy in our hearts."

Smit smartly intervened when a journalist kept pressing a rattled De Villiers on whether it was "OK to gouge on a rugby field" by saying: "Can we leave this matter for the judiciary?"

But the veteran skipper also insisted that the series project was not complete, as they would aim for a whitewash at Coca-Cola Park.

"We talk standards, and in this series we haven't fully hit the button yet. We want to do that in the remaining game."

Lions coach Ian McGeechan, asked what he had said in the vanquished dressing room after the final whistle, replied: "I said that we're very proud of the boys and we didn't deserve to be two down in a Test series. We put up a tremendous performance.

"We haven't had the rub of the green with certain decisions but the result won't change; we've just got to accept it … in both games we've been winners in a lot of respects."

Just not on the all-important scoreboard...