The Fort Worth Press - Stand-in Springboks skipper Vermeulen hails 'fantastic performance'

Winger Kurt-Lee Arendse scored a hat-trick of tries as the Springboks cruised to a bonus-point triumph after recovering from conceding an early try to lead 17-5 at half-time.

Vermeulen, standing in as skipper for injured Siya Kolisi, hailed the "tremendous" 50,000 Loftus Versfeld crowd after the unexpectedly convincing victory for the Rugby World Cup title-holders.

"I am really proud of the boys," said the 37-year-old back-row forward, who says he will retire after South Africa defend their world title in France later this year.

"The boys were inspired by an absolutely tremendous crowd," he said as South Africa maintained a perfect record against Australia at the Pretoria ground with an eighth victory since 1963.

"We had our plans coming into the game, but did not know what to expect from Australia," he admitted.

"I felt (Australia coach) Eddie (Jones) might have one or two things up his sleeve, but we adapted well, played to our strengths and I am really happy with the performance.

"We can still improve, our performance was a bit below 100 percent, but it is hard to complain when you start the season with a 31-point victory."

Prop James Slipper, who shared the captaincy with flanker Michael Hooper in a first for the Wallabies, offered no excuses after their second heaviest loss in Pretoria.

"We just defended in the second half and you have got to give credit to the Springboks, who put us under constant pressure."

"It is hard to take such a heavy defeat, but we will learn a lot from it," vowed the veteran forward.

"While it is a tough start to the international season, we have a long road ahead of us and will keep working hard.

"We wanted to play the Australian way tonight, but I have to admit that we did not deal very well with the pressure applied by the Springboks."

"A lack of discipline put us on the back foot in the second half," he said, referring to yellow cards for David Porecki and Suliasi Vunivalu after they conceded penalty tries.

South Africa are away to title-holders New Zealand next Saturday while Australia host Argentina later the same day.

The Rugby Championship has been reduced from the traditional six matchdays to three this season because of the World Cup, which kicks off in Paris on September 8.

T.Dixon--TFWP