South Africa's injury toll increases

South Africa could be without two more of their big guns for Saturday's Pool D match against Fiji after centre Jean de Villiers and second row Victor Matfield were sidelined with injury during Sunday's nail-biting 17-16 victory over Wales at Wellington Regional Stadium.

Wales threw everything they had at the defending world champions, but South Africa survived thanks to the second-half arrival of their bench players, who turned the tide in their favour after Wales led 16-10 with 15 minutes to play.

Matfield suffered a recurrence of the hamstring strain he had been carefully nursing since arriving in New Zealand, while the South Africa camp were nervously awaiting further medical advice on de Villiers' painful rib injury.

"I'm very worried about him, but we will do a full assessment after 24 hours," said coach Peter de Villiers, who was otherwise beaming at the post-match news conference after coming away with a win.

Much-needed momentum

Replacement wing Francois Hougaard scored the winning try and reserve hooker Bismarck du Plessis helped give South Africa much-needed momentum when he came on in place of captain John Smit midway through the second half.

"It wasn't a rugby Test. I call it a test of character," said de Villiers.

"We came to win the first game and we achieved that goal. Today our bench came on and made the difference, that's why they were there."

Hougaard replaced wing Bryan Habana, who also had hamstring issues in the lead-up to the Wales match.

The other major injury concern for South Africa is second row Bakkies Botha, who missed the Wales match with a foot injury and whose fitness was to be reassessed this week.

Although Wales were disappointed at the loss, coach Warren Gatland was proud of his team's effort.

Not clinical enough

"I couldn't be more proud of the effort of the players in terms of what we delivered out there.

At the end of the day, we weren't quite clinical enough to win the game, but that's sport."

Other coaches might have complained about the James Hook penalty kick that was waved away despite appearing to cross high above the posts but within the line of the uprights, but Gatland was also philosophical about that.

"That's the drama of sport. That's why we're all involved in it. You take the good with the bad and that penalty was potentially costly.

"Good sides take disappointment on the chin and they face up next week."

South Africa's match against Fiji is again in Wellington, while Wales will play Samoa at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton on Sunday, 18 September.