Twenty minutes without a point, then five collisions that won a Test. The last one is the one Rassie Erasmus talked about.
The Springboks beat the All Blacks 29-24 at FNB Stadium on Saturday to lead Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 2-1, and the physicality was on another level. Not only in the scrum. Everywhere. These are the five Springboks key moments that won it.
The scrum gave them a penalty try and four penalties, but the collisions were everywhere: Cobus Reinach’s rip on halfway, Pieter-Steph du Toit’s tackle on 61 minutes, a maul that went twenty metres, and Ethan Hooker chasing every high ball.
Live, the match looked even until the last quarter. Watched back, it comes down to five moments, and in every one of them South Africa won the contact before they won the ball. Rassie Erasmus put the fifth one into words on Saturday night, and it was not the scrum.
If you think the scrum was the story, the comments are at the bottom. Read the fifth moment first.
1. Arendse, after twenty minutes of nothing (22 minutes)
By the 20th minute South Africa had lost Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to the sin bin, Cheslin Kolbe to a head knock, and seven points to Ardie Savea. They had also won three penalties in three minutes, taken a lineout to the corner, and come away with nothing after Jasper Wiese’s obstruction and a failure to retreat at the quick tap.
All that pressure, and no points. Siya Kolisi said afterwards that “the first 25 minutes the lungs were pumping hard”, and that his side “did so well to make sure we didn’t concede more points”. The next thing they needed was a score, and they needed it before the half turned into a New Zealand one.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu came back on 20 and went to fullback, with Manie Libbok staying at 10. Within a minute New Zealand lost their own lineout ball. Jesse Kriel ran through an edge on the right, Libbok’s long pass found Hooker on the left, and Damian de Allende took the ball back infield with Leroy Carter in front of him. He went past Carter one-on-one and put Kurt-Lee Arendse through the gap.
The conversion missed and it was 5-7. It did not matter. After a quarter of nothing, that try was exactly what the Boks needed.
2. Love in the bin, and the scrum South Africa chose (37 minutes)
New Zealand answered inside four minutes, Savea’s second try after Libbok’s clearance missed touch, and led 12-5. Then came the passage that levelled it, and it started with a tackle on halfway.
Reinach hit Asafo Aumua and ripped the ball free. Wiese ran through a wall and offloaded. Ox Nché took the pass around his laces. Libbok stepped inside three times and was stopped a metre short. Ruan Nortjé carried, Nché carried, and Ruben Love went in to slow the ball down and was sent to the sin bin.
South Africa had a penalty a metre out and a man advantage. They chose a scrum, five metres out, on the All Blacks’ feed. Erasmus had put the front row he pulled in Cape Town back in for Soweto, and Wilco Louw’s shove had already won a scrum penalty on 14 minutes. Nché went through Tyrel Lomax, eight men in black went backwards at pace, and Nika Amashukeli ran under the posts. Penalty try. 12-12 at the break.
That choice tells you everything about this pack. Most teams with a penalty a metre out take the maul or the pick-and-go. South Africa asked for a scrum, because they knew seven points were there without a back touching the ball.
3. Kriel, inside two minutes of falling behind (57 minutes)
The second half was even for ten minutes, and then it was not. Will Jordan’s grubber, Carter’s patience and Jordan’s support try put New Zealand 17-12 up on 56 minutes, and for the first time since the penalty try the All Blacks had the match where they wanted it.
That is the moment a series turns. Five minutes of New Zealand possession from there and the Springboks are chasing at altitude with a quarter to play.
New Zealand got nothing of the sort. South Africa won the restart, went down the short side, then through the hands to the right. Feinberg-Mngomezulu fired a long pass to Libbok, Libbok fired one to Kriel, and Carter rushed up and missed. Kriel ran in from 22 metres, Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted, and South Africa led 19-17. Their first lead of the night, inside two minutes of trailing by five.
If the Boks had not answered that quickly, the score at the end would have been different. The All Blacks did not get a single phase to believe they had it.
Read also: the five mistakes that cost New Zealand the same Test, where Carter’s two missed tackles are one and four.
4. MALCOM Marx over the ball, the Cape Town turnover all over again (61 minutes)
Morné van den Berg’s touch-finder from the restart pinned New Zealand back, and they attacked off the lineout with Cam Roigard’s box kick and the ball in hand. Du Toit stopped the momentum with a tackle. Malcolm Marx got over the ball and won the penalty.
He had done the same thing a week earlier. The 71st-minute turnover that ended the Cape Town comeback was Marx too, and Kolbe kicked the three points that put that Test two scores away. Same man, same thing, one week later.
Watched back, this is where the All Blacks’ momentum ends. Kriel’s try had taken the lead. Marx’s steal took the ball and the field position, and New Zealand never got either back for long. The lineout that followed, Cameron Hanekom’s carry, Jordan’s kick bouncing dead, Fletcher Newell’s scrum penalty on 65: every one of those came off the back of the turnover on 61.
5. Twenty metres of maul, and the last quarter that came home (66 minutes)
Libbok kicked Newell’s penalty to the corner rather than at the posts. Du Toit brought the throw down at the back of the lineout, the ball came to Marx at the back of the maul, and it rumbled twenty metres and sideways towards the posts before it splintered and Marx fell over the line. Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted. 26-17 on 66 minutes.
Jason Ryan timed the All Blacks maul defence at two seconds late in Cape Town. On Saturday timing did not come into it. The pack that hit them had three replacements in it, and it moved them twenty metres.
This is what physicality is. Not one hit. Twenty metres of them. Erasmus was asked about the scrum afterwards and answered about the maul.
“I don’t think we dominated the scrums. I think we mauled exceptionally well today… We love scrums, we really love scrums, but we love mauling as well.”
Rassie Erasmus, Springboks post-match press conference, FNB Stadium, Saturday 5 September
The maul is where the Boks took the last quarter back. New Zealand had won the final twenty minutes at Ellis Park and again in Cape Town, and on Monday Erasmus had conceded that the penalty count in the last twenty had been going against his side, “mainly because of our fault”. The bench that had stopped winning the last quarter was the story of the week.
From the hour on Saturday it was South Africa ten, New Zealand seven, and the seven came after the hooter. South Africa put three replacements on at 63 and used all eight. They made 150 tackles to 106. And the penalties finally went the other way: Fabian Holland’s side entry in front of the posts for Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s 29-17, Newell offside again, a New Zealand clearance that could not find touch with the match still alive.
Hooker, the player of the match, put the whole quarter in one sentence. “New Zealand love to shift the ball. We have to stay disciplined, keep fighting, put in those dominant tackles.”
What the Springboks key moments mean for Baltimore
South Africa lead 2-1. A draw in the fourth Test on Saturday 12 September gives them the series, and New Zealand must win to level it.
Four of the five moments came from being physically on top: the rip, the scrum, the steal, the maul. Kriel’s try came from something else, a team that believed it was on top and played like it. New Zealand will arrive in Baltimore knowing the first hour is theirs. The Springboks know the last twenty minutes are theirs again, and this time the coach said it out loud.
Frequently asked
What were the Springboks key moments against the All Blacks at FNB Stadium?
Five: Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try on 22 minutes after twenty minutes without a point, the penalty try from a five-metre scrum on 37 after Ruben Love’s yellow card, Jesse Kriel’s try on 57 inside two minutes of New Zealand taking the lead, Malcolm Marx’s breakdown steal on 61, and Marx’s try from a 20-metre driving maul on 66. South Africa won 29-24.
What did Rassie Erasmus say about the maul?
At the post-match press conference at FNB Stadium on Saturday 5 September he said: “I don’t think we dominated the scrums. I think we mauled exceptionally well today… We love scrums, we really love scrums, but we love mauling as well.”
Did the Springboks win the last 20 minutes?
Yes. New Zealand had won the final twenty minutes at Ellis Park and in Cape Town. At FNB Stadium South Africa outscored them ten points to seven from the hour, with New Zealand’s seven coming after the hooter.
Read next: the Springboks ratings, where Marx is the case against Hooker’s award, because moments four and five above belong to the same man.
Your turn
Five Springboks key moments, and Erasmus picked the maul. The rewatch picks Kriel’s try, because without it the maul is chasing a deficit instead of building a lead. Which one would you not have won without? Put a minute on it below, and if you say the maul, explain what it was building on.
