Rugby-No celebrations for record-breaker Habana

Bryan Habana finally became South Africa's leading all-time try scorer on Thursday but he will not be celebrating the milestone at the World Cup if coach Peter De Villiers has anything to do with it.

The Springbok winger broke his 15-month test scoring drought by sprinting 40 metres to score his 39th test try in the 22nd minute of the 87-0 hammering of Namibia to edge ahead of former scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen.

"I think other people were more worried about it than I was," the 28-year-old, the leading scorer at the last World Cup, told reporters. "I've said it my whole career: it's always been about the Springbok team.

"It's never been about the number of tries I've been able to score, it's about contributing, and I'm disappointed that I haven't been able to contribute for the last couple of tests.

"Hopefully, now everyone can stop worrying about it and I can concentrate on playing rugby.

"It's been great, a great honour and privilege to break records and pass someone like Joost. Hopefully, I can keep using my God-given talent to contribute to Springbok rugby."

De Villiers, who was delighted with his team's performance after a shaky start, gave short shrift to the record, however.

"These things don't matter to the team," he said. "Before, the World Cup, we said that there will be milestones for players and we will be happy.

"But if their goals don't fit into the team goals, we don't want them in this group. So if we get one or two guys reaching milestones along the way, we will rejoice with them afterwards."

De Villiers was equally emphatic when rebutting the charge that the Springboks, who ran in 12 tries, had wasted several chances and would have been punished against better-quality opposition.

"You are talking about the perfect world, but we're not in a perfect world, we're in New Zealand," the coach said.

"We played a brilliant game once we regrouped. We are very proud of the guys, very, very proud. If we had played another team we would have done things differently."

Both the coach and the captain John Smit were most pleased with another fine defensive effort by the Springboks, who limited Fiji to three points in their second Pool D game before shutting out the Namibians.

"Some of things we've worked hardest on are our defence and our scrum work," said Smit. "There'll be bigger tests coming in the future but it was a big step."

De Villiers said it would be 24 hours before there was any news about the severity of the injury to lock Bakkies Botha, who limped off after hurting his ankle nine minutes into the second half.

(For the sports blog Left Field go to: http://blogs.reuters.com/sport))

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