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Dippenaar made 74 as the tourists reached 209 for two in their second innings at the end of the third day's play.

They still trail by 191, having been forced to follow on, but he said: "Cricket has a funny way of putting doubts in your mind and today went a long way to erasing some of those doubts.

"We tried to play positive and put some pressure back on the Aussies and it worked."

South Africa were comprehensively beaten in the first two Tests and Dippenaar acknowledged it was the "hardest cricket" he had ever played.

"The Australians are very ruthless in their approach and you have to be exactly the same if you want to succeed against sides like that.

"They have put an enormous amount of pressure on us and we haven't been able to absorb that very well but what we did today will give the guys a bit of confidence because we were able to compete against them.

"We can't live in the past. There is nothing we can do to change what has happened, but if we can learn from those bad experiences and turn it into a positive force, it will benefit the side," he said.

"It's been very hard for us, but we can either lie down and sulk about it, or turn around and try and do something about it and that's what we've decided."

Australian coach John Buchanan insisted his players were taking nothing for granted despite their dominant position in the game.

They led India by 274 runs on first innings in Calcutta earlier this year, but VVS Laxman's 281 enabled the home side to turn the match on its head and win by 171 runs.

"This situation is a little bit different. I think we made the correct decision in enforcing the follow-on here. I just hope it doesn't come back to haunt us," Buchanan commented.

"We gave South Africa the opportunity to get back in the game. We were aggressive and gave too many runs between lunch and tea."