Springboks vs All Blacks match report, third Test of the Castle Double Malt Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, FNB Stadium, Johannesburg, Saturday 5 September.
The Springboks took a 2-1 lead in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry with a 29-24 win over New Zealand at FNB Stadium on Saturday evening, in a Test of four tries apiece played in front of 85,976 in Soweto.
The sides went in level at 12-12, and the win was the first by South Africa over the All Blacks at the ground, after defeats there in 2010 and 2012. A draw in the final Test in Baltimore on Saturday 12 September now secures the series. New Zealand must win to square it.
Ethan Hooker was named player of the match, and Siya Kolisi’s 55th Test win as captain set a Springboks record. Tupou Vaa’i won his 50th cap for New Zealand, and Ardie Savea scored twice before leaving on the half hour clutching his arm, two tries that, by the Guardian’s count, made him the highest-scoring forward in Test history.
The number of the day was 11. New Zealand fed 11 scrums to South Africa’s five, and Stan Sport’s full-time board scored them 11 from 11. A penalty try and four penalties came out of them, which was the match.
Ten minutes that could have buried the Springboks
Cheslin Kolbe fielded the kick-off over his shoulder and found touch beyond halfway with his left foot, and for a quarter of an hour that was as good as it got for the home side. New Zealand were quicker to the edges, and on seven minutes Will Jordan fielded a Cobus Reinach kick inside his own 22 and ran past six defenders before Kolbe swept across to clean up his chip.
On ten, with Peter Lakai unmarked outside him and the line ten metres away, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu knocked the ball down deliberately and was sent to the sin bin. Kolbe left the field in the same passage with a head knock and did not return, and Manie Libbok came on.
Ruben Love kicked the penalty to the corner, Asafo Aumua found his jumper, and Savea picked up off the deck and drove through the ruck. Love converted for 7-0.
Then the scrum turned. Wilco Louw’s shove on 14 minutes won the first Springboks scrum penalty, and George Bower’s line that the first scrum in Soweto would do the talking started to look like a prophecy for the wrong side. Savea gave away a soft penalty at a ruck, Tyrel Lomax another at a maul, and South Africa had a lineout near the corner. They left with nothing after Jasper Wiese was penalised for obstruction and the Springboks failed to retreat at the quick tap.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu returned on 20 minutes and went to fullback, with Libbok staying at flyhalf. Within a minute New Zealand lost their own lineout ball, a skip pass found Jesse Kriel on the right edge, Libbok’s long pass found Hooker on the left, and Damian de Allende’s pass sent Kurt-Lee Arendse through a gap for the try. The touchline conversion missed.
Hooker stole the ball off an isolated Sam Darry on 25, but Libbok’s clearance failed to find touch and New Zealand counter-attacked through Love and Leroy Carter, who ran away from Arendse down the left and kept the ball alive when he was caught. Savea flopped over in the corner and Love’s kick went across the face. 5-12.
Eben Etzebeth left the ball on the floor with an open blindside on 30 minutes, the third Springboks visit to the New Zealand 22 to produce nothing, and a minute later Savea was gone, Wallace Sititi taking his place.
The scrum that levelled it
Reinach tackled Aumua on halfway and ripped the ball free. Wiese ran through a wall and offloaded, Ox Nché took the pass around his laces, and Libbok stepped inside three times to within a metre of the line. Ruan Nortjé carried, Nché carried, and Love was sent to the sin bin for slowing the ball down.
South Africa chose a scrum five metres out. Nché went through Lomax, the eight men in black went backwards at pace, and Nika Amashukeli ran under the posts for a penalty try. It was 12-12 at the break, and the front row that Rassie Erasmus had pulled five minutes before kick-off in Cape Town and restored for Soweto had made its point. After a week of Dave Rennie’s complaints about a Springboks scrum walking around, Erasmus had answered in seven words: “We’re not walking around. We’re scrumming through.”
Read also: Kieran Read says the Springboks scrum is legal, and that is the bad news for New Zealand.
The wind picked up at the break and South Africa played into it. Sititi picked off a pass, Kolisi was penalised for offside, and Damian McKenzie’s touch-finder gave New Zealand a lineout within touching distance of the Springboks line. South Africa did not lift, kept their men on the ground and shoved the maul back, and Jordan spilled in contact.
With advantage running, the Springboks asked the referee for the scrum on their own 22. It won a penalty, Rennie sent on Xavier Numia and Fletcher Newell for Bower and Lomax, and the next scrum went down for another penalty on 50 minutes. The one that went New Zealand’s way followed, after Morné van den Berg dropped a clean lineout ball, and Love missed the penalty from the left of the posts.
Two tries in ninety seconds
New Zealand’s carries off a scrum on 56 minutes went nowhere, so Jordan, from the opposite wing, put a grubber through. Carter ran onto it, stood in the tackle and waited, and Jordan arrived to score. Love could not bring the conversion round from the touchline, and New Zealand led 17-12.
The lead lasted ninety seconds. South Africa won the restart, went down the short side and 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, in a structure Rennie later said had the wing defending high by design. Kriel ran in from 22 metres, Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted, and South Africa led for the first time at 19-17.
Marx and the last quarter
Van den Berg’s touch-finder from the restart pinned New Zealand back, and when they attacked off the lineout Pieter-Steph du Toit stopped the momentum and Malcolm Marx got over the ball to win the penalty. He had won the 71st-minute breakdown penalty that ended the Cape Town comeback a week earlier, and this was the same man doing the same thing.
Deon Fourie, Gerhard Steenekamp and Lood de Jager came on for Etzebeth, Nché and Kolisi on 63 minutes, with Du Toit taking the captaincy. Jordan’s long kick took a wicked bounce and dribbled through the shallow in-goal for a Springboks scrum, Newell was penalised at it, and Libbok kicked to the corner rather than at the posts.
Du Toit brought down the throw at the back of the lineout, the ball came to Marx at the back of the maul, and it rumbled 20 metres and sideways towards the posts before it splintered and Marx fell over the line. Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted for 26-17 on 66 minutes.
Fabian Holland entered a ruck from the side in front of the posts, Du Toit pointed at the sticks, and Feinberg-Mngomezulu made it 29-17. His tackle on Jordie Barrett off the restart was the hit of the night, Newell was offside, and Anton Lienert-Brown’s steal was undone by a clearance that did not find touch. After the hooter Samisoni Taukei’aho scored from a pick-and-go and McKenzie converted for 29-24.
New Zealand had won the last twenty minutes at Ellis Park and in Cape Town, and the Springboks bench had stopped winning the last quarter. From the hour on Saturday it was South Africa ten, New Zealand seven.
New Zealand finished with 57 per cent of possession, and South Africa with 53 per cent of territory and 150 tackles to 106. Both lineouts held, 11 from 11 for the Springboks and 11 from 12 for the All Blacks, and the one that went missing cost Rennie’s side a try inside a minute after he had dropped Codie Taylor for the lineout, not the scrum. The penalty count was 11 against South Africa and 12 against New Zealand.
“We feel privilege, not pressure”
Kolisi was laughing when SuperSport reached him on the pitch. “The first 25 minutes the lungs were pumping hard,” he said. “We did so well to make sure we didn’t concede more points. We were much better than the last two weeks.” And then: “We feel privilege, not pressure. We’re grateful.”
Luke Jacobson spoke for New Zealand in Savea’s absence. “I thought we started really well. But the Springboks came out in the second half and played their game. We allowed them to.”
Hooker, who chased every high ball and won two turnovers, kept it short. “New Zealand love to shift the ball. We have to stay disciplined, keep fighting, put in those dominant tackles.”
John Smit called Baltimore a money game on Monday and said the series would be decided in Soweto. It has not been decided, but it has been taken to the point where only a New Zealand win next Saturday can stop it. The full run of results is in every fixture and result in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. Onto Baltimore.
Scorers
Springboks 29 (12) – Tries: Kurt-Lee Arendse, penalty try, Jesse Kriel, Malcolm Marx. Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (2). Penalty goal: Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
New Zealand 24 (12) – Tries: Ardie Savea (2), Will Jordan, Samisoni Taukei’aho. Conversions: Ruben Love, Damian McKenzie.
Yellow cards: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (South Africa, 10 minutes), Ruben Love (New Zealand, 36 minutes). Referee: Nika Amashukeli. Attendance: 85,976. Player of the match: Ethan Hooker.
The teams
South Africa: 1 Ox Nché, 2 Malcolm Marx, 3 Wilco Louw, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 5 Ruan Nortjé, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 8 Jasper Wiese, 9 Cobus Reinach, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 11 Ethan Hooker, 12 Damian de Allende, 13 Jesse Kriel, 14 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 15 Cheslin Kolbe.
Replacements (all used): Deon Fourie, Gerhard Steenekamp, Thomas du Toit, Lood de Jager, André Esterhuizen, Cameron Hanekom, Morné van den Berg, Manie Libbok.
New Zealand: 1 George Bower, 2 Asafo Aumua, 3 Tyrel Lomax, 4 Tupou Vaa’i, 5 Sam Darry, 6 Peter Lakai, 7 Luke Jacobson, 8 Ardie Savea (captain), 9 Cam Roigard, 10 Ruben Love, 11 Leroy Carter, 12 Jordie Barrett, 13 Quinn Tupaea, 14 Will Jordan, 15 Damian McKenzie.
Replacements: Samisoni Taukei’aho, Xavier Numia, Fletcher Newell, Fabian Holland, Wallace Sititi, Kyle Preston, Anton Lienert-Brown, Josh Moorby.
Read next: the preview that said Saturday was still South Africa’s to lose, despite never having beaten New Zealand at the ground. The player ratings for both sides: Hooker’s 9 and the case for Marx above him, and Carter’s 5 after two tries made and two conceded.
Your turn
Ethan Hooker has the award. Malcolm Marx has the try that settled it, the turnover that turned the last quarter, and a scrum that produced a penalty try. If the official vote got this wrong, say so below, and say who you would have given it to.
