I was hunting through the stats and it really screams out.
Runs SA 173: Aus 64
Completely agree that the key issue in this game was possession - 37%
Kicking game must improve, chasers must improve, re-gaining the ball must improve. Next game is going to be interesting.
Yes, I can't say you see many teams winning games with such low possession. SA can definitely be beaten playing a lower percentage possession game however, just not to that degree and not when your possession is in the wrong areas of the field (territory at 40% and time in 22 was really poor) and you're not clinical enough to convert every entry (opportunity) you have.
Australia beat them down at Adelaide last year with 46% and Ireland beat them last year with 44%, Wales beat them with 44% last July and just lost out in the opener to that series (32/29) with 43% possession and 40% territory which was also played in Pretoria. Wales could have won that game if their discipline had been a little better. Wales tend to play a low possession game to good effect, with Biggar raining balls with good precision. There were 107 SA runs to Wales 62 runs in that game. With 480 run meters (SA) to Wales 216, so on paper not great for Wales.
So while all those stats for Australia are poor, they're not far off other teams who have achieved much better results, so they are part of the story, not the story itself.
To my mind, there was fundamentally one glaring issue which needs to be resolved first and that is our defence. It wasn't good enough. It didn't look organised with coherence and some players just executed very poorly which I feel may be the system as there were issues across the park.