The captain, sporting an impressive black eye from last week's match and a large welt on his left cheek from the Fijian clash, was pleased with his team's progress, but said it was too early to say if they had set down a marker for the rest of the tournament.
South Africa's clinical 49-3 demolition of Fiji at the rugby World Cup on Saturday showed they were slowly building into the tournament and improving each week, according to captain John Smit.
The Springboks struggled in their opening game last week against Wales, defending for most of the game and failing to sustain any possession before a late try from Francois Hougaard gave them a 17-16 victory in the Pool D match.
On Saturday at the Wellington Regional Stadium, however, they strangled the attacking Fijians with their brutal defence and when they got down into the Pacific islanders' 22m area, they were brutally efficient in scoring points.
"It was a better performance... it was a step in the right direction. It's a good steeping stone [for] where we need to go and we needed to improve from last week," Smit told reporters.
"Last week I wouldn't give ourselves a very good mark.
"This week we were controlling the game both when we had the ball and didn't have the ball. You couldn't say the same last week.
"The nice thing about this week compared to last week is that this week we played closer to how we prepared.
"It was a far better performance today."
Smit, who was sporting an impressive black eye from last week's match and a large welt on his left cheek from the Fijian clash, said he was pleased with his team's progress, but it was still too early to determine whether they had set down a marker for the rest of the tournament.
"The intention was to get better every week," he said. "We came into the World Cup pretty undercooked rugby wise, so it was important for us to progress.
"It's a little too early to be deciding who is making a marker. It's week 2 and it's not really when you win the World Cup."
Fiji captain Deacon Manu, who said that emotion had got the better of his side, was, however, prepared to back the Springboks going forward.
"That was a fantastic Springboks side. In my opinion they're better than the Springboks side from four years ago," he said in reference to the team that beat Fiji 37-20 in the 2007 World Cup quarter-finals before they went on to win the Webb Ellis trophy.
"They've got a lot of experience across the park, guys who won the World Cup, and they are going to be one of the teams to beat, if not the team to beat this year."
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