Springbok lock Franco Mostert and scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse say the team is determined to improve their performance after falling short against Ireland this past weekend.

South Africa opened their Castle Lager Outgoing Tour campaign with a narrow 19-16 defeat against Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday.

They will have since departed for Marseille on Sunday and will return to the training field on Monday to begin their preparations for Saturday’s outing against France.

Mostert said reflecting on the match: “The guys that started did a good job to get us 22m entries, but we couldn’t finish our chances. The bomb squad came on and picked up the pace as expected, but in the end, we couldn’t get the result.

“We are very disappointed with the result, but all we can do now is focus on correcting the mistakes we made and ensure that we play better next week.

“But what we will take out of this game is that it was good experience for the players who have never faced Ireland and playing in front of a capacity crowd away from home. That will be invaluable for us before and during the World Cup.”

Hendrikse echoed his teammate’s sentiments: “We need to improve and be more clinical in our execution. We created a few chances in the game, but we didn’t use them, so that is one of the areas we must improve on.”

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