Days of meticulous planning, a meeting with the referee and some inspirational words from absent captain John Smit all played a role in the Springboks' historic rugby defeat of the All Blacks in Saturday night's Tri-Nations thriller in Dunedin.

The world champions regained their world No.1 ranking after the 30-28 win and spoke later of motivation on many fronts.

The last words they heard before running onto Carisbrook was via a video message recorded by Smit, who was injured in their loss in Wellington a week earlier and forced to fly home for treatment.

Replacement skipper Victor Matfield said Smit's role in the lead-up couldn't be downplayed.

"I always say that a captain is more than just what you do on the field," he said.

"The guys showed a lot of character, we took a lot of planning into this game and it paid off.

"We were very disappointed with our performance last weekend and we knew we had to work on a lot of things."

They played a more structured game, kicked well for position and unleashed their swarming defence. They dominated at lineout time and used the rolling maul to good effect.

The Springboks also believe they benefited from the meeting between both coaching teams and Australian referee Matt Goddard 24 hours before kick-off to discuss scrum engagement.

The International Rugby Board called the unprecedented meeting to clear the air after the Springboks had accused All Blacks loosehead prop Tony Woodcock of illegalities.

It was noticeable that the New Zealand scrum lacked its Wellington impact, something Woodcock's opposite CJ van der Linde attributed to Goddard's stance.

"The meeting with the ref made a lot of difference," van der Linde told South African journalists.

"The All Blacks were walking around in the scrum a lot last week, so we brought that to the referee's attention and it happened a lot less today. And we also had plans to counter it."

South Africa's first win at Carisbrook in eight visits dating back to 1921 was a personal triumph for coach Peter de Villiers.

However, he didn't want to ram the result down the throats of his numerous critics, both at home and in New Zealand, who questioned his credentials.

"I've got nothing to prove. If I believe in myself, if I believe in my players, if I believe in my god ... I don't need people around me," de Villiers said.

"Everybody has got an opinion and we respect their opinions but it doesn't mean we agree with their opinion. If we can stand up like we did today as a group, people will change their own opinions."

He leapt from his coaches' box seat in animated style when Ricky Januarie scored the match-winning solo try but didn't want to single out his halfback.

"I always believed in all the players ... and they started believing in themselves," he said.

"They are the world champions and they knew they had to go out and lift their game and they did.

"Last week we played backwards. Today we mostly had the ball on the front foot. It makes it so much easier for a scrumhalf to play from that."

All Blacks opposite Graham Henry acknowledged how much the Springboks had improved but denied the week-long war of words between both teams had played a part in the reversal of fortunes.

"There was only one team (Springboks) talking this week and they were trying to make sure they were talking themselves up and they played very well," Henry said.

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