The World Cup-winner missed a couple of penalties on goal and also missed a crucial touch-finder to setup a drive-maul for the Springboks.

Jantjies was substituted at half-time and this prompted Damian Willemse to marshal the backline.

Following the match Nienaber said that Jantjies went into the Test under-cooked.

“We've got a couple of boxes to tick, but we've selected the team the way we did. Elton has probably played less than 30 minutes of rugby this year.

“He hurt his shoulder and obviously went through his rehab, and his Japanese club didn't go through to the final. There weren't any games to expose him to.

“The only exposure he had for the year thus was in training. We needed to get him some games and it will always take some time for a guy who has been out for a while.

“Fortunately for us, he got 40 minutes under the belt. But even if you train guys as much as you want and put them into contact sessions, there's no pressure there.

“It was good for us to expose him to Test rugby again.”

In saying that, Nienaber also did concede that their kicking game wasn’t up to scratch and this aspect of the game will be one of the Boks big work-ons in Bloemfontein.

“It is probably the one reason why we struggled to get out of our half. It is probably the one thing we will have to improve.”

It is expected that Handré Pollard will return to action for the second Test.

On Saturday at 17:05 the Springbok Wales will battle it out in the second Test that will be played in Bloemfontein.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport