South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis believes resilience is one clear point of difference between Australia and his side.
The two teams are somewhat similar on paper, with a couple of gun batsmen and bowlers but a lot of players capable of indifferent innings with bat and ball.
The tourists won the first Test at the WACA by 177 runs but only after a significant momentum shift on day two, when Australia suffered a collapse of 10-86.
"We rely quite heavily on being a resilient team, we're full of resilient players and personalities," du Plessis said on the eve of the second Test, which starts in Hobart on Saturday.
"If you want to win Test matches you'll get small opportunities in games.
"It's 50-50 where either you take that pressure and get through that moment to get on top again or you don't and you fall behind the game.
"Luckily for us in the previous Test match we could do it more than they did, they had that opportunity and they let it slip."
Du Plessis felt it was hard to manufacture the sort of steely self-belief that enabled such comebacks, suggesting it only comes from confidence and experience.
"You have to go through it a few times and learn how to get out of it. We as a team have been through it a lot of times," he said.
"I can go back so many Test matches - the last series in Australia, they dominated us in the first and second Test matches.
"We hung in there and hung in there ... when we came to Perth finally the momentum changed and we dominated Australia (and won the Test and the series)."
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