Cam Roigard tapped a penalty on his own five-metre line in Soweto. Stephen Donald, who kicked the goal that won the 2011 World Cup final, read the whole All Blacks tour off it. Five days later South Africa won 43-28 in Baltimore and took the series 3-1. So was he wrong, or was he early?
Ardie Savea scored twice that night. Will Jordan beat six men from inside his own 22. Donald picked none of it. He picked a penalty nobody kicked.
The series is gone in a way it was not then. The Dave Rennie All Blacks lost it 3-1, beaten 43-28 at M&T Bank Stadium on 12 September. Morné van den Berg, on his first start of the series, was man of the match. Donald’s case was made before any of that, and 43 points does not settle it.
What he watched was the third Test, at FNB Stadium. What he came away with was a moment that never reached a highlights reel.
Forty-three points later, that can read like a World Cup winner consoling himself. Say so below. The evidence is worth walking first.
Donald won 23 caps at 10 between 2008 and 2011. He spent this tour in South Africa for Sky Sport NZ. On Monday 7 September, on The Aftermatch, the podcast he co-hosts with broadcaster Kirstie Stanway, he was asked to rate the third Test.
South Africa had won it 29-24 at FNB Stadium two days earlier to lead Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 2-1. Stanway put it to him that the series was decided.
“It’s not,” Donald said. Then, on the players: “I think they were gutted because they couldn’t win it outright anymore.”
“It’s been three unbelievable Test matches. And it was a funny one, Kirst, because for large portions of that, particularly the first half, I thought it was the best we’ve probably played.”
From a coach with four wins in six, in a series already lost, that is a claim that needs evidence.
The lineout ball went to the front, then it went away
“You looked at that first half and we were able to keep the tempo and speed of game that we wanted, I think, for the most period we ever have in this series. You think about all the, I guess, options at lineout time that the boys just threw to the front, moved the ball quickly, got rid of it, whether it be the props at the front quickly getting it to Roigard or what have you.”
Watch what a front throw does to a Springboks lineout defence. South Africa set up to sack a maul, dragging it down before it can move, and to compete at the tail, the back of the lineout. That puts Eben Etzebeth and Pieter-Steph du Toit where the drive is supposed to form.
Throw to the front, bring the ball down through the lifter and into Roigard’s hands, and none of that happens. The heaviest men on the field are ten metres from the ball, and there is nothing for them to push.
“We were able to play high tempo first half and we saw a lot of their big men struggling,” Rennie said at the post-match press conference at FNB Stadium. Four minutes later, asked where his side had to be better: “Our lineout was strong tonight and we were able to get our game going off that.”
By the half hour, on this site’s count, South Africa had been into the New Zealand 22 three times and scored from none of them. Their 12 points came from a lost All Blacks lineout on 21 minutes and a scrum penalty try on 37.
Not under a box kick
“And then the amount of counter-attack opportunities we got, Kirst, where we were getting the ball not under a box kick, because we’d done a good job previously…”
The Springboks, he said, were hacking it out of their own 20 or 30 and giving Damian McKenzie, Ruben Love and Will Jordan “plenty of time to organise counter-attack”.
A box kick is a contested exit. It hangs, a chaser arrives with it, and the man catching it decides what to do with somebody’s shoulder in his ribs. A hack from the 20-metre line is uncontested. By the time it lands the back three have had four seconds to spread.
That was the argument this site made before the first Test: you do not break the Springboks, you make them kick. For forty minutes in Soweto they were kicking, and badly.
Will Jordan fielded a Cobus Reinach kick inside his own 22 on seven minutes and ran past six defenders before Cheslin Kolbe swept up his chip.
Savea’s second try, on 26, was Donald’s moment of the week. Tupou Vaa’i stepped a defender. The ball sat on the floor and Jordan, the nearest man, played halfback.
Savea stood at first receiver, the first man to take the pass, and threw a cut-out that skipped the man outside him and found Leroy Carter. Carter was caught in the corner, the ball spilled loose, and Savea went over.
Nobody waited for the specialist. When the shape looks like that, the plan is on.
Five minutes later Savea was off with the shoulder that means he would not travel to the United States, and the half ended 12-12.
A quick tap on the five-metre line
“We have given these guys essentially two months to completely shift their mentality when they’re playing for the All Blacks, and we’re within a whisker of being where we need to be… The building blocks around the mentality and getting the boys in a mindset to want to play and be brave to play, I think he’s won them over. That’s already a given.”
Then he named the evidence.
“When you see Cam Roigard taking a quick tap from his own five-metre line because they’ve got a penalty and guys are hanging around, and it’s an obvious thing to do, but not the usual thing to do, and he’s doing it. I think from that point of view Dave Rennie would be very happy that we are on the right track.”
Donald did not give the minute. The one in the site’s own match report came on 19, after Jasper Wiese was penalised for obstruction near the New Zealand line. The Springboks did not retreat from it, which is the whole point of tapping quickly.
A halfback who taps on his own five has looked at the defence and decided it is broken. Forty metres of touch is the safe thing and the usual thing.
The tap says the green jerseys still walking backwards are worth more than the touchline, and it only works if the seven forwards around him already believe it. Donald, who spent his Test career at 10 watching halfbacks make exactly that choice, read the whole tour off it.
Then it slipped back into Cape Town
Forty minutes was all of it New Zealand got.
“Everything they did in the first half, it slipped back into a little bit of what happened in Cape Town, where they just weren’t able to play quickly as they had wanted in the second half, and they just allowed a few gifts as far as penalties and field position. And once the Springboks got that… we did a whole analysis on them last week about how organised and how routine they are once they get a sniff inside your 30.”
The gifts have names. Ruben Love’s yellow card a metre from his own line on 36 minutes, and the penalty try that came off the scrum after it. Jordan’s kick on 63 that bounced dead, and the scrum, the penalty, the lineout and the Malcolm Marx maul try that followed in that order.
Rennie’s own chain on Saturday was the same one: an error becomes a scrum, the scrum becomes a penalty, and the penalty becomes the field position a maul needs.
Read also: the five moments that decided it, and none of them was a lineout.
The other thing the second half had was Damian de Allende. Donald had talked up the Springboks midfield on the previous episode and blamed himself for it: “We jinxed ourselves.” What he described was “that little shuffle skip and fend that he’s got”.
Then the part that matters: de Allende “getting outside his marker and sucking in the next guy, so therefore freeing up his wingers and outside players.”
Everyone sees the fend. Watch the next defender instead. De Allende gets outside his marker by half a metre, the second man turns his hips in to help, and the space he was guarding now belongs to Jesse Kriel.
Kriel ran in from 22 metres for the try that put South Africa ahead, past a wing whose structure put him there, Rennie said.
Twelve points from the better half. None from the worse one. Donald saw both and did not move.
Rassie has a year, and Donald says he knows it
Stanway put the week’s consensus to him: that Rennie will have learned far more from the series than Rassie Erasmus.
“I don’t think Rassie wouldn’t have not learned anything either, because now he knows he’s got a year to keep working on being able to stay ahead of an All Black team that’s going to play differently.”
Donald said the part the All Blacks will not say out loud. They are happy “that the track that they have decided to go on is the right one for this group”. The Springboks, he added, “by and large have been playing like this for two World Cup cycles”.
Baltimore made it seven Tests.
| Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday 4 July | France | Christchurch | Won 34-32 |
| Saturday 11 July | Italy | Wellington | Won 47-17 |
| Saturday 18 July | Ireland | Auckland | Won 40-21 |
| Saturday 22 August | South Africa | Ellis Park | Won 33-16 |
| Saturday 29 August | South Africa | Cape Town | Lost 26-33 |
| Saturday 5 September | South Africa | FNB Stadium | Lost 24-29 |
| Saturday 12 September | South Africa | Baltimore | Lost 28-43 |
Source: allblacks.com results.
Three defeats now, all to the world champions. The first two by seven and by five, with a plan two months old against one that has been running for two World Cup cycles. The third read 43-28, and it was 29-21 with a quarter of an hour left.
Donald had said before Soweto that the Soweto Test would be harder than a World Cup, and he has not moved off it. The position here is still his. The shape is right, and the Dave Rennie All Blacks lost these Tests on exits and discipline. Neither is a game plan. Both are habits.
Luke Jacobson, the acting captain once Savea went off, named the habit himself on Saturday night. “A big part of scoring points is being able to bank them and being able to exit out of your half. Something we weren’t able to do well there, and the Springboks hit us back straight away.”
What Baltimore did to the Dave Rennie All Blacks
Not much of Saturday’s spine went with them. Savea, Quinn Tupaea and Jacobson flew home injured, and six more went with them, the All Blacks confirmed on Sunday 6 September as the squad was cut to 36. Richie Mo’unga was in it, and he started in Baltimore.
Read also: South Africa won it 3-1, and nine All Blacks went home injured.
Both of Donald’s tells were answered inside half an hour in Baltimore. On five minutes Roigard tapped and went again. On 27, after Tupou Vaa’i stole a ball, Richie Mo’unga’s clearance failed to find touch and South Africa came straight back.
That is the whole argument in two moments. The mentality Donald read off one tap was still there. So was the habit Jacobson named. Donald’s whisker survived the first quarter of an hour in Baltimore. It did not survive the last, when 29-21 became 43-28.
Read next: Mo’unga started in Baltimore, and Kieran Read still says Ruben Love is the All Blacks 10.
Your turn
Two ways to read it now. Either Donald was right and the shape is there, and what beat New Zealand three times was exits and discipline. Or a plan that turns that much first-half ball into 12 points is the problem, and the Springboks have simply learned to wait for it. Baltimore did not settle it. Settle it below.
Frequently asked
How did the Springboks All Blacks series finish?
South Africa won it 3-1. They beat New Zealand 43-28 at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on Saturday 12 September, after losing 33-16 at Ellis Park and winning 33-26 in Cape Town and 29-24 in Soweto. A New Zealand win in Baltimore would have shared the trophy at 2-2.
What is Dave Rennie’s record as All Blacks coach?
Seven Tests, four wins. Wins over France, Italy and Ireland in July and over South Africa at Ellis Park, then defeats in Cape Town, Soweto and Baltimore. He was appointed in March, after Scott Robertson left the job in January.
Which All Blacks went home before the Baltimore Test?
Nine, released on Sunday 6 September as the squad was cut to 36: Ardie Savea (shoulder), Quinn Tupaea (knee), Luke Jacobson (elbow), Ofa Tu’ungafasi (illness), Cortez Ratima (knee), and Josh Jacomb, Siale Lauaki, Saula Ma’u and Bradley Slater.
