John Smit says South Africa are still 'a long way off' the team they want to be as they prepare for their final home Test of the season against Australia in Bloemfontein on Sunday.
After the highs of 2009 when a series victory over the British and Irish Lions was followed by the Tri Nations crown, the world champions failed to match those standards in 2010.
They started well enough with victories against Wales in Cardiff and then beat France and Italy twice, but after a run of four straight defeats - three to New Zealand and one to the Wallabies - the knives were out for Smit and his team.
The sequence was ended last week with a 44-31 triumph over the Australians in Pretoria and the Springbok captain is determined to use that as a stepping stone to improve.
"We will certainly use that to build on," he said. "It's a long way off from where we need to be but at least there's a win under our belts.
"If we think we have turned the corner we [now] need to be able to open up on the straight and that will only be evident if we can follow through on that tomorrow.
"Since our return from overseas we have been concentrating on what we can control, which is our game - our set pieces, what we do in general play, how we kick and whether we kick to give it away or to get it back.
"When you have a bad run of results you have to go back and touch on your basics and get them back to where they belong."
The starting XV for the clash at Vodacom Park sees just one change made by coach Peter de Villiers with veteran lock Danie Rossouw swapping places with rookie Flip van der Merwe, who drops to the bench.
Also amongst the replacements, Bath first five-eighths Butch James has a shoulder injury and misses out to Gio Aplon.
With the inclusion of Rossouw it means the starting line-up represents a total of 750 caps, making it the most experienced Springbok side of all time.
New Zealand wrapped up the title two weeks ago meaning both sides are playing for the pride of second place as well as the Nelson Mandela Shield.
Despite this De Villiers resisted calls to rest his senior players for the game and Smit sympathises with him
He continued: "It's always tricky deciding when to rest players and it's very difficult to rest a whole group of players.
"It's something you need to do on an individual basis."
There are also reports that some of the older heads may be rested for the year-end Grand Slam tour to Europe, but Smit said: "The fact that it is a Grand Slam tour does complicate matters. You're not going to give that up easily.
"But we'll do some planning in the next couple of weeks, plotting our road to the World Cup."
As for tomorrow's game, he added: "There is always something to play for.
"Every Test match has massive prestige so to have one where we can possibly at least end second and win the Mandela Plate is important."
"We expect Australia to come out hard and would be naive to think they are not going to want to build on their first 20 to 30 minutes of that first Test.
"They have made a few changes and they will want the changes to aid them in being able to get a victory in Bloemfontein.
"We certainly expect them to be coming out even harder this weekend."