Rugby
John Goliath, Special to ESPN 6y

Boks' victory over All Blacks 'amazing but in the past ' - Malcolm Marx

Rugby, Rugby Championship

PRETORIA -- Star hooker Malcolm Marx says the Springboks have to put their sensational victory over the All Blacks in Wellington behind them when the two teams meet at Loftus Versfeld in the final round of the Rugby Championship on Saturday.

The Boks beat the All Blacks in New Zealand for the first time in eight years after being largely written off ahead of the clash, and they needed to produce a massive physical performance -- mixed in with a bit of luck -- as well as some clinical finishing to get the job done.

The South Africans followed up that effort with a win over Australia in Port Elizabeth, where they had to dig deep to keep the Wallabies out in the second half.

However, Marx says Saturday's challenge is going to be even bigger against an All Blacks team that will be hurting after the result at the Wespac Stadium.

"That victory was amazing for us, but it's in the past now and we have to focus on this week," he said.

"We must focus on ourselves and where we can get better, and obviously look at what we did wrong in the All Blacks and Australia games and try to improve on that.

"We'll go from there; we don't want to focus on the past because that won't help us with anything. We got to focus on this week and this week only."

But Marx says the victories over the All Blacks and the Wallabies have given them a great boost heading into their final Rugby Championship match of 2018.

The Boks had been a bit all over the place, and their performances were very inconsistent, before the win in Wellington, but the lessons learned will help them grow as a team, especially with the Rugby World Cup just over a year away.

"There has always been a sort of buzz but, yes, I think the guys are a bit more positive," Marx said.

"Beating New Zealand was huge for us and trying to back it up and beating the Aussies, we are really happy about that.

"We have shown for two Tests in a row how we can defend if our heads are screwed on right. So we will look to control the things that we can control and we will work on the little things."

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