Springbok captain John Smit bemoaned his team's poor defensive effort after Australia recorded a comprehensive 39-20 in over South Africa on Saturday.

Smit admitted "it could have got even uglier" for the Boks had the Wallabies ruthlessly executed several all their tryscoring opportunities - with Australia outscoring the visitors by five tries to two.

The Boks skipper also bemoaned his team's lack of ball control.

"They took full advantage of the ball we spilled. Gee, I would hate to look at our turnover stats and the ball we gave away," Smit said.

"They made good decisions with it as well and we rue those two tries in two minutes in the first half and three tries in eight minutes in the second.

"It looked like it was going to get ugly, but the boys managed reined it in a little bit."

Smit struggled for positives from a performance where the Boks were outmuscled and outsmarted.

"We can take a few positives from the game - especially our performance in the second-half," Smit said.

"However, it was quick tries which killed us as we were constantly playing catch up rugby.

"That is not the way to win Tri-Nations Tests."

Smit said they would have learnt a lot from the loss.

"We let some really easy tries through.

"The Wallabies attacked us when we were defensively frail and we will kick ourselves after giving away those easy chances.

"We had chances in the first-half and away from home we needed to take those opportunities.

"However, both sides will want to improve in terms of accuracy.

"We need to take this experience. We must also stick to our plan in terms of defence and work hard on defence  as we know how easy it is when you keep the ball and how hard it is when you lose the ball.

"We will take a look at the game and see where we can improve before next week's clash with the All Blacks."