Heyneke Meyer could not hide his disappointment after South Africa squandered a 20-7 lead against Australia in their opening game of the Rugby Championship.
The visitors dominated the first hour of the contest in Brisbane, cancelling out Adam Ashley-Cooper's 34th-minute try with five-pointers of their own from Eben Etzebeth and debutant Jesse Kriel, plus 10 points from the boot of Handre Pollard.
But they faded badly in the latter stages, allowing Michael Hooper to cross with six minutes left, before Tevita Kuridrani's after-the-buzzer try eventually secured a dramatic 24-20 victory for the hosts.
"The Wallabies came back in the last 10 minutes," said Meyer. "So all credit to them, but we won the ball back and with 30 seconds left we should've kicked the ball out.
"The end of the game was really heart-breaking, especially for a lot of our youngsters. We had a lot of injuries and everyone was writing us off, so it could've been sweet, but all credit to the Wallabies.
"You have to be 100 per cent on your game if you want to win away from home as has been proven before. They came back again at the end when it mattered."
The South Africans' misery was compounded by the loss of inspirational skipper Victor Matfield to a hamstring injury after just 18 minutes and Meyer believed that the vastly-experienced lock was badly missed during the frantic final minutes.
"It's not an excuse," he said. "But if Victor was on the field right to the end, maybe it would've been different.
"We struggled to get momentum back in the second-half I thought. When we had the ball, we really put them under pressure, but in the last 30 minutes, we didn't get any ball.
"We lost one or two line-outs, we gave away one or two penalties that were 50-50, so we've learned a lot.
"I'm still proud of the guys, but you know it's never good enough for the Boks to lose, even away from home. I thought we did enough to win and I really believed we could win this game."
Meyer went on to confirm that Matfield will be out for at least a fortnight, but insisted that his side are well capable of bouncing back by defeating New Zealand in Johannesburg next weekend.
"We have to turn it around and be up for it on Saturday, but there’s no reason why we can't beat them," he said.
"I think we truly believe that we can beat any team in the world when we play to our strengths. It's going to be a big mental challenge to get them back but I’m very confident that we can beat them."