AFTER more than a decade of going without the trophy, the Springboks clinched the second Rugby Championship Test against the All Blacks in Cape Town yesterday evening, winning 18-12 in front of about 57 000 raucous supporters in the DHL Stadium.
A late maul, after New Zealand prop Tyrel Lomax received a yellow card for tackling Cheslin Kolbe without the ball, Bok replacement hooker Malcolm Marx went over in the corner to secure South Africa’s fourth straight win over the Kiwis. The world champions took one step closer to winning the Rugby Championship with the win, and only need one more victory over Argentina (who played Australia late last night) to seal the deal.
It wasn’t the prettiest and free-flowing games, but that shows the pressure both sides were under to secure the victory. The Springboks, to extend their unassailable Championship lead, to win the Freedom Cup and to keep their chokehold on their arch-rivals. The visitors had pressure because the win would’ve stopped their negative record against the Boks and secured a second win in the tournament to keep their title-hopes alive.
But they could not even take advantage of the early yellow card Bok eighth man Jasper Wiese received for a cynical infringement. Because shortly after him, All Black winger Sevu Reece joined him in the naughty chair when he played fullback Willie le Roux dangerously in the air.
The sold-out DHL Stadium would’ve enjoyed the arm-wrestle, though, and despite all the mistakes – there were handling errors, unnecessary penalties were given away, and for the most part, the Boks were impatient on the attack – the supporters received value for their money.
Yes, there were not a lot of tries and that was maybe down to some impatience from the world champions on the attack, but they were entertaining. The same handling errors and ill-discipline plagued the Kiwis during the game.
The half-time score of 3-9 to the visitors probably showed how evenly matched the sides were, but also how poorly they played at times.
But the Springboks will be happiest with how things ended, and harsh words would’ve fallen by half-time in their dressing room to jolt them awake. Yes, there were still errors from the home side, but they were the only side to score tries and they reduced the All Blacks to just three points.
So good was the Boks’ defence, their scrambling for the most, that the New Zealanders couldn’t score a try and you could count on one hand the couple of times they threatened the try line of their opponents. Meanwhile, there were again flashes of attacking brilliance by the world champions but they needed to grasp those opportunities.
But those two tries, the first where captain Siya Kolisi, playing with a fractured nose, went over after breaking a tackle metres from the try line, brought much belief in the second half. Kolisi was one of the standout players, alongside centre pairing Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel, winger Cheslin Kolbe and the rest of the forwards as a unit.
The Boks worked hard in the dying minutes to clinch the game after a couple of missed penalties both ways, the easiest coming the way of flyhalf Damian McKenzie, that could’ve made the game tighter. The All Blacks also had a good opportunity to strike when Le Roux was carded for a knock-down in the 64th minute, but they couldn’t make that extra man advantage count. When Marx burst over in the corner, with New Zealand down to 14, off the back of a rolling maul, you could sense the Springbok nerves had settled a bit.
The All Blacks didn’t lay down, though, and attacked in the final minutes, looking for a way to penetrate the defensive line, but after some hard tackles alongside some good high-ball fielding by Kolbe amongst others, the South Africans sealed a deserved win.
Points scorers:
Springboks 18 (3): Tries: Siya Kolisi, Malcolm Marx. Conversion: Handre Pollard. Penalties: Pollard, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
New Zealand 12 (9): Penalties: Damian McKenzie (4).