South African captain John Smit says his team was given a huge fright by Fiji in their World Cup quarter-final clash in Marseille on Sunday.

He says there was a period midway through the second spell when he thought his team would follow New Zealand and Australia on an early plane trip home from France.

"It was a tough quarter-final," Smit said after the game.

"We are pretty happy to get through it and finish well, but there was a time when I thought let's not make this a weekend of upsets."

"(There were) a few missed tackles on our behalf and we certainly didn't defend as well as we should have," Smit said.

However, the Boks skipper was more than happy to walk away with a win and book a spot in the semifinals..

"As I always say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing and we're into the next round."

Bok coach Jake White also acknowledged that Fiji put in a strong performance and said he will have a full compliment to pick from for the semifinal and possible Final.

"The important thing for me is, no injuries and we've got a full team that can play next weekend," White said.

"That's where you want to be, you want to make sure you've got you whole squad for the semis and the Final."

"Everybody expected us to just run through them, but all credit to Fiji, they showed what they are capable off and you can see why they beat Wales.

"With the score at 20-6 I thought we had done enough to win the game and they had 14 men. They had two Sevens teams on when they had 14 men and they played better with 14 men than when they had 15."

"There's no doubt that Tongan game helped us get through (the pressure) of this one as well.

"The lessons we learnt there and the way we pulled through, certainly helped.