A third win over the South Africans was a great way to round off the 2016 Under Armour Series, giving Wales three wins out of four games for the first time since 2002, but Howley wants his players to keep on improving as they prepare to host the reigning champions, England, and the recent slayers of the All Blacks, Ireland, at the Principality Stadium in the New Year.
“We targeted three or four wins this autumn and we reached that target. The attitude and effort of the players has been great and I’m quite happy with the past five weeks,” said Howley.
“To beat Argentina and South Africa has to be deemed a success in this series. But we all now we will have to go to another level before we face England and Ireland.
“We were quite comfortable for the whole 80 minutes and at 20-6 we were looking for the next score. It was disappointing to see them score and we lacked a little bit of discipline in those last 20 minutes.
“We were probably two tries short and the speed of ball we got wasn’t as quick as it could have been. But there were some good decisions made by players out there and you can see the influence of the skills work being done with them in the Regions and with Wales.”
For skipper Gethin Jenkins it was another milestone in his record breaking career as he became the first player to feature in two autumn campaigns with three victories. He made his debut against Romania in Wrexham in 2002 and, 14 years on, did it again with the ‘Class of 2016’.
“We have always had belief in ourselves and in the coaches. We’ve won three of our four games, and it’s nice to end with a win, but there are still areas to work on,” said Gethin Jenkins.
“We were putting passes in, and we were creating a bit of pace, and I think we are improving in that area. There is still a long way to go, but we have worked hard over the past five weeks.
“We didn’t really feel threatened, but perhaps we shut up shop a little too early. We have lost a few tight games to South Africa in the past and we haven’t ever been in that sort of situation against them before. I’m proud of the team and I’m proud with the win.”
BBC pundit Jonathan Davies selected try scorer Justin Tipuric as the Under Armour Man of the Match for his magnificent performance. He made the game safe with his 20 metre run to the line five minutes from time.
“It was more important to get the win than to score the try. We have been training hard for five weeks and it was nice to end with a performance like that. Any South African team is a good team and they fought hard right to the end,” said Tipuric.
