'I'm not worried': Victor Matfield backs Boks to bounce back in Cape Town

Rassie Erasmus' men fell to a 33-16 defeat at Ellis Park in the first game of the Test series, with New Zealand outscoring the hosts five tries to one.

That result not only puts Dave Rennie's men up 1-0 in the four-Test series, but has also seen the All Blacks return to the summit of the World Rugby rankings for the first time in a year. New Zealand also snapped South Africa's 12-game winning streak with their victory.

Despite the defeat, former Bok captain Matfield is not overly concerned, as he believes international rugby is far more competitive now than in the past, and any team can be beaten when they have an off day.

"I don't think you'll ever get a nation to dominate the game for three or four years as New Zealand have done in the past," he said on SuperSport's Final Whistle Presents Side Entry show.

"Teams are too close to each other; anything can happen on the day. You don't use one or two opportunities, and all of a sudden you're in trouble.

"If we think back one year ago, we sat here after we lost to Australia, and we were asking, is it the end of an era? Where are we standing? And again, it was a game that we started well, same as this year, made one or two mistakes. Unfortunately, we couldn't turn it around."

While the scoreline points to a comprehensive defeat, the former second-rower suggests that it flatters the victors and claims that the Springboks actually dominated the All Blacks but just failed to make the most of their chances.

This left him quite confident that New Zealand couldn't back up that performance over the next three Test matches, particularly with South Africa 'dominating' several facets of the game.

"If I look at this game, I'm not as worried as everyone else. We dominated the scrums; in the second half, we dominated the lineout. We actually looked better on attack between the 22 metre lines," he continued.

"Our defence: they never threw anything at us from set-pieces from far out and made us think that they were going to put us wide-wide – that never happened.

"It was all about: we had our opportunities in the first half; there were three opportunities we didn't score. They were really good when they got to the 22; we have to give that to them. Cam Roigard is unbelievable, so they do have special players that can play the big moments, but if you look at the game, I still think we dominated them.

"There was no time in the game where I felt this was a team that's going to beat us two or three times in a row."