All Blacks player ratings: front row 4s, a bench 8 and the substitution that won it

1. Ethan de Groot

Arrived as the outstanding forward of New Zealand’s Nations Championship and spent 40 minutes being taken apart by Ox Nche. Off before the hour after a clash of heads with Josh Lord.

2. Codie Taylor

His 110th Test cap and one of the harder afternoons of it. The throwing held up. The platform underneath him did not, and the scrum improved the moment he came off on 54 — a brutal way to be judged after a decade of service.

3. Tyrel Lomax

The visible loser of the first hour. Put through the Ellis Park turf by Nche on 32 and never recovered parity.

4. Josh Lord

Won lineout ball and got through his defensive work before the head clash ended his evening at the break.

5. Fabian Holland

Read Grant Williams, got the long arms up, charged the box kick down and gathered the bounce for his first Test try on 48. The single most valuable act of the match by a New Zealand forward, and it came completely against the run of play.

6. Tupou Vaa’i

The best forward on the field for an hour and the one New Zealander who never looked beaten. Won lineouts on his own throw and against it, carried repeatedly in the right tram, and supplied the offload out of contact that put Josh Moorby over on 24.

7. Luke Jacobson

Finished the try on 60 that turned a one-score game into a 10-point lead, and made the hit at the back of the ruck that forced the South African error on 62.

8. Ardie Savea (captain)

Did not dominate the match. Did decide it. Two of New Zealand’s five tries came directly off his pick-and-go from the base, he produced the jackal over Cobus Wiese on 70, and he stripped Jan-Hendrik Wessels in the same passage. Captaincy that held a side together through an hour of being beaten up.

9. Cam Roigard

The snipe and skip pass that made Will Jordan’s ninth-minute try, and a clearing box kick on 36 that got New Zealand from their own line to halfway when they were under real pressure. Only his second appearance against South Africa.

10. Ruben Love

Four conversions from five, including three in the closing quarter, plus a long touch-finder on 38 that relieved genuine siege pressure. Conceded a soft offside penalty in front of his own posts on 55.

11. Josh Moorby

Facing the Springboks for the first time and took his try on 24 without hesitation. Tidy under the high ball on a night when that mattered.

12. Jordie Barrett

Two acts that changed the scoreboard, neither of them with ball in hand. Got a hand in on Malcolm Marx over the line on 35 to deny a certain try, then stole the ball on 38 to end another South African siege. The most valuable defensive performance on the field.

13. Quinn Tupaea

The 50-22 on 68 that pinned South Africa in their own half and effectively closed the match out. Solid rather than spectacular before it.

14. Will Jordan

His 52nd and 53rd Test tries, and the break on 58 — beating five tacklers from a retreating position before releasing Damian McKenzie — that broke South Africa’s belief. Also won a crucial penalty on the floor on 66.

15. Damian McKenzie

Passed a fitness test to play and was New Zealand’s counter-attacking outlet all evening. The 58th-minute surge into the 22 should have been a try and forced the error that started the collapse anyway.

16. Asafo Aumua

On for Taylor on 54 with New Zealand conceding scrum penalties on their own line. Two minutes later they won one. He was not clean at the lineout and it did not matter: the scrum was the only contest South Africa were winning, and it stopped being theirs from that point. The most consequential substitution of the series so far.

18. Fletcher Newell

Part of the same front-row refresh and entitled to a share of the credit for the scrum stabilising. Dave Rennie has picked Lomax ahead of him all season; that call gets harder now.

17. George Bower

On early after de Groot’s head knock, and New Zealand went backwards at three more scrums before the front row was completed. The loosehead was not where the problem lived.

19. Simon Parker

A late call-up to the 23 who ended up playing most of the second half after Lord’s head knock. Got through the work without fuss.