Springbok captain Kolisi admits the Wallabies executed their plan more effectively this past Sunday and were worthy winners at the CBUS Super Stadium.

The Boks did score three tries to one by the hosts, but despite this they trailed 19-11 at the break and went down 28-26 at the death as Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper kicked his seventh penalty goal shortly after the final hooter had sounded to snatch a victory for his team.

The Boks conceded 11 penalties – seven of which were in range for Cooper, which he duly converted into points – while they also had to play for 20 minutes with only 14 players after Siya Kolisi and Willie le Roux were yellow-carded.

“They took every opportunity they were given, so well done to them,” Kolisi said of the Wallabies. “They always pitch up when we play them, and it’s always difficult to play them here.

“Getting yellow cards is something that we rarely do, so to get two in one day is disappointing. We know what we need to fix. We’ll watch the game back tomorrow, and we have a short week, and we’ll go again.”

Kolisi added that they would not make excuses for the result after he was asked if being in quarantine for two weeks had any effects on the Boks.

“We’ll never use not being ready as an excuse – when we step on to the field, we have to be ready. I thought we prepared well this week, but our discipline wasn’t good. The Wallabies played well. This is a hard place to come and win.

“We didn’t play the way we wanted to on the day, and their plan worked better than ours in certain areas.”

The Springboks will meet the Wallabies again on Saturday, 18 September, at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane before taking on the All Blacks in back-to-back matches on Saturday, 25 September in Townsville, and Saturday, 2 October in Gold Coast.