New Zealand beat South Africa 33-16 in the first Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry at Ellis Park, scoring five tries to one, and the ratings below carry an oddity for a side that won by 17 points: the starting front row does not get out of the fours.
That is the story of the All Blacks’ evening. They were out-scrummed and out-muscled for an hour, kept their heads, and took four of the five chances they created. The highest mark on the page belongs to a replacement hooker who played 26 minutes.
Every All Black who took the field on Saturday 22 August is rated out of 10 below.
READ ALSO: How the All Blacks lost the first hour at Ellis Park and won the Test anyway
All Blacks player ratings in full
Forwards
1. Ethan de Groot — 4. 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 — 5. 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 — 4. The visible loser of the first hour. Put through the Ellis Park turf by Nche on 32 and never recovered parity.
4. Josh Lord — 5.5. Won lineout ball and got through his defensive work before the head clash ended his evening at the break.
5. Fabian Holland — 7. 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 — 8. 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 — 7. 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) — 7. 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.
Backs
9. Cam Roigard — 7. 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 — 7. 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 — 7. 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 — 8. 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 — 7. 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 — 7.5. 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 — 7. 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.
Replacements
16. Asafo Aumua — 8. 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 — 6.5. 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 — 5. 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 — 6. 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.
20. Peter Lakai, 22. Anton Lienert-Brown, 23. Leroy Carter — n/a. All introduced with the result already settled.
What Rennie has to decide before Cape Town
The front row picks itself as a problem. De Groot at 4 and Lomax at 4 are not marks a winning side usually carries, and both are there for the same reason: they lost an hour of scrum time to a South African pack that will be unchanged and angrier next week.
Aumua’s 8 makes the hooker question live, and Newell’s 6.5 makes the tighthead one live too. Dave Rennie now has evidence that his bench front row handles the Springboks better than his starting one, which is a pleasant problem and a genuinely difficult selection.
Everything behind the scrum can stay as it is. Vaa’i, Barrett and Jordan were the three best All Blacks on the field and none of them needs replacing.
The second Test is at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday 29 August.
READ ALSO: Springboks player ratings: Jasper Wiese a 9 in defeat, and two marks in the fours
Disagree? A starting front row in the fours from a 17-point win is the one that will start arguments. Have your say in the comments.
