South Africa skipper John Smit said the defeats of Australia and New Zealand in their World Cup quarter finals was enough to steady his team's nerve when Fiji looked like causing a third upset.

Fiji capitalised on a second half lapse in concentration from the Springboks to score two tries in three minutes with only 14 men on the field, bringing the scores level at 20-20 with 20 minutes remaining.

But Smit said the team had watched both the Wallabies and the All Blacks suffer shock defeats the day before and only needed reminding of this in order to recover their composure.

"I told the guys to remember the look in the eyes of the Aussies and Kiwis yesterday and I said I didn't want to see that here," Smit said.

Coach Jake White also praised the leadership of the senior players admitting his team were under huge pressure and close to buckling when Fiji drew level.

"I thought the captaincy and leadership of the senior players today was outstanding," White said. "With 20 minutes to go that game could have fallen apart but the captain took charge and for the last 20 minutes we probably played the best Test rugby we've played in six months.

"If you compare what happed yesterday and what happened today there's no doubt the one difference today was that the senior players in the last 20 put their hands up."

White said his players were expecting Fiji to draw inspiration from England's win over Australia and France's victory over New Zealand but he did not know how they would react when they found themselves in trouble.

"No one would have said that on one Saturday, New Zealand and Australia, the number one and two in the world, would be knocked out of the World Cup, so I'm as surprised as anyone but what it did highlight is that there is no preparation for pressure," White said.

"You can talk to them till the cows come home but when you get on the field you need players to understand and execute the things they've been practising.

"It just shows that certain players and certain teams can handle pressure a lot better and I'm just thankful that I'm sitting here as a coach of a team that could handle it.

"We probably didn't play as well as we could have, we know that, but at the end of the day it's about going through to the next round.

"We're in the top four, we've got no injuries, we scored five tries today so what more do you want than going into the last two weeks of a World Cup knowing that you've still got a chance to win the World Cup."

Smit also admitted he was relieved to get past Fiji, who staged a remarkable comeback to beat Wales in the pool stage to reach the quarter-finals.

"We can be quite happy that we got out alive today given the results of yesterday," Smit said. "Those results would certainly have given Fiji a huge amount of belief that anything was on the cards today so we were fortunate in the fact that we were 20-20 with 20 minutes to go rather than 10 or eight minutes to go.

"You've still got enough time. You can still rally the troops, you can still create a plan, you don't hope for [Bryan] Habana magic, you can manufacture a test win. I'd rather experience those things now and get through them than be on the other side and not get another chance next week."

Eurosport