HUGE Tri Nations Review – Boks vs Wallabies

The Springboks began their 2007 Tri Nations campaign with a narrow 22-19 win over Australia in Cape Town on Saturday.

At a warm, dry Newlands the home side got off to a cracking start, controlling the possession and mounting multi-phase attacks that had the Wallabies scrambling on defence early on. The widely predicted hammering of the Aussies looked set to become reality.

The Boks opened the scoring two minutes in, via a penalty from Percy Montgomery. Stirling Mortlock leveled the score on the thirteenth minute with a penalty of his own.

The Wallabies were resolute on defence -  a fact reflected in the final tackle count of 137 tackles to South Africa’s 52. Their loose forwards, especially Rocky Elsom and Wyclef Palu, were particularly impressive in this area, putting in the big hits to stifle many promising Bok attacks around the ruck fringes.

The customary Australian spoiling tactics in the scrums seemed to work for them, with Shepardson going down at almost every scrum and BJ Botha being penalized on several occasions. Again a disappointing performance from a pack that should dominate against teams like Australia. Gert Smal continues to disappoint as Bok forwards coach.

Sustained pressure from the Springboks eventually lead to a try by Jaque Fourie in the fourteenth minute. Butch James received the ball and floated a pass over the defence and four of his own players to find Fourie who dived over in the corner. Monty converted to put the Boks ahead 10 – 3. Unfortunately, it was to be the one and only try by the Springboks on the day.

The backline struggled to breach the Australian defensive line for the rest of the match – probably a result of lying too flat and being too predictable in their lines of attack. The Wallaby defense was huge though, bordering on offsides at times, but all credit too them for a gutsy and intelligent effort. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the Bok backs reacting to the situation as they persisted with their predictable pattern.

The Aussies were beginning to get hold of some possession at this stage, and threatened the Bok line – carrying the ball up through numerous phases in typical Australian fashion. The pressure appeared to be getting to the Boks as their discipline started to slip.

Mortlock converted a penalty after twenty-nine minutes, reducing the gap to 10 – 6 in favour of the Springboks. A brilliant team try followed with Mortlock bashing through a couple of tackles and offloading to Giteau, who scored under the posts. The conversion put Australia 13 – 10 ahead. All the momentum was now with the Aussies as they to continued their attacks in the Boks’ half of the field.

The lack of discipline from the South Africans culminated in Spies being yellow-carded just before half time and Mortlock sinking another penalty from in front, meaning that the Aussies lead 16 -10 going into the break.

After half time, Morlock was again on target with a penalty. Montgomery then slotted two for the Boks to take the score to 19 – 16 in Australia’s favour. With the Boks now in the ascendancy and attacking relentlessly, the pressure got to the Aussies and they gave away a couple of penalties within range. Matfield, standing in for the injured John Smit as captain, decided to take the lineout on both occasions however.

“I probably would’ve opted to kick to poles, but the players sometimes have a feel for the situation,” said Jake White. “They obviously thought they had the measure of the Wallaby pack. Maybe they were hoping for another collapsed maul, which would result in an Australian player getting a yellow card. But it is something that we will look at this week and discuss what we would do in future.”

In the 73rd minute, a hasty clearance by Larkham was gathered by Frans Steyn, who had replaced Willemse in the 61st minute. Standing almost 50m out and against the touchline, he launched a monster right-footed drop kick that sailed between the poles to level the scores at nineteen-all.

A few minutes later Jean De Villiers broke from his own line and put in a grubber kick which was gathered by Gregan. He was immediately smashed by Danie Rossouw. The Wallabies managed to get the ball back from a ruck on their own line and kicked into touch.

The Boks drove strongly from their lineout on the 22m, and after eleven phases of possession, the ball was passed back to Steyn in the pocket. He calmly slotted another big drop kick to put the Boks 22 – 19 ahead. On the hooter, Butch James gathered the ball and kicked it directly into touch, sending the Newlands crowd into hysterics.

Speaking about his last minute heroics, Steyn said, “The kicks just happened. The Lord moves me around like a pawn and I don’t know where I’m going to end up next.

“I didn’t think about it before hand. I missed the Super 14 kick in the semi final and that just happened. Those drop goals happened the same way. At 19-16 down it was a tough moment because we couldn’t break their defence, so I just dropped back and had a crack and luckily it worked out for me”

A visibly shattered Mortlock said they could do nothing stop Frans Steyn, but was full of praise for his team’s defensive effort.

“He’s proved that he’s a freak when it comes down to drop goals and we’d seen him sink a few like those in the Super 14, so it wasn’t too surprising to see him do it again. But credit to him that despite the fact that we knew he was going to do it and put pressure on him he still executed brilliantly under extreme pressure.

“He’s shown us in the Super 14 he can land field goals from anywhere. I’ve never been involved in a more determined and committed defensive effort than we put in today.”

“We gave it our all and I thought we showed a lot of courage out there. I was particularly happy with our defence and the character we showed throughout the contest.”

“Obviously the changeroom was pretty quiet, with some of the guys just taking some time out. It’ll take a couple of days to get over the feeling of losing this one but we’ll regroup and work on those things we need to improve.

“But to be perfectly honest I couldn’t be any happier at the effort the boys showed tonight. They were courageous on defence and showed a fair bit of heart to rally from behind then lead at half-time. We stayed positive when we did have the ball and despite being starved of possession we stayed within striking distance.

“We’ll take a lot of positives going forward into the rest of the tournament. We never really got into the game after half-time and weren’t able to put them under sustained pressure. When a team gets momentum like they did there’s not much you can do to stop that. But I thought we deserved a bonus point at least.”

John Connolly was uncharacteriscally quiet at the post-match press conference but did say that “Matches like this come down to fractions, and today Frans Steyn proved to be the difference. Our scrum stood up really well today and in that regard I thought thought Matt Dunning came of age today.

“Our lineout was OK, but South Africa have a world class lineout and it’s always going to a big challenge to dominate there. The challenge for us now is to pick ourselves up and bounce back because we’re better than we’re playing at the moment.”

Jake White, on the other hand, was visibly buoyed by the victory and full of praise for his players.

“I’m obviously very relieved. To be fair the players showed a lot of character in the second half. There are other teams that would’ve lost that Test match. At 16-10 down at half-time, I thought we played all the rugby and I thought we had enough chances to score but didn’t finish.

“I can’t overemphasise that they showed maturity, character, experience, and those are all the things they have learned over the last four years. I always knew it would be difficult. The media thought it would be an easy Test, and Australia were downplaying the fact that they were underdogs.

“You can’t coach composure, there’s no manual on how to kill a game. I don’t believe that three or four years ago we would have won a Test from that position.”

“Their defence was outstanding. I had a brief glance at the stats and they made 135 tackles compared to our 50-odd. We kept coming at them, we kept field possession and we dominated territory and I think the way they kept themselves in the game was incredible.”

“It’s simple. The Gregan-Larkham-Giteau-Mortlock-Tuqiri combination boast over 450 caps between them, and you can’t underplay the value of experience. The way we came at them early on, most teams would have rolled over, but having that experience kept them in the game.”

Speaking about Frans Steyn and his last minute drop goals to secure victory, White said:“He’s a special player and he’s just proved that tonight. People say that the second drop kick was special, but the first one was even better given that he caught it on the touchline and showed enough composure to sink it from there.

“It’s a known thing that rugby World Cups have been won on drop goals and to have guys like Frans, Percy, Derick Hougaard and Andre Pretorius in the side gives us a huge advantage going into the World Cup. ”

“I sent him on in the basis that I knew he could change the game. I decided to make some changes because I didn’t think I was getting enough from the guys that were out there, and those changes got us good returns. Everybody backs him to go for the drop goal. Nobody would admonish him if he missed.”

John Smit spoke about his injury and the game in general.

“I have never done a hamstring in before so I have no idea, and the doctors have told me it is impossible to gauge until at least 24 hours after the game

“It was a very close affair throughout the afternoon. But thanks to our replacements who made a massive difference when they came on we were fortunate to sneak it at the end. Those fresh legs brought a positive influence to the team when they got on to the field and I think we showed great character there at the end.”

“I think it was some of the best rugby we’ve played. We created good opportunities and dominated for long periods, but just couldn’t convert those chances. We had to really grind it out and the way we did it was very special.”

Man of the match Schalk Burger said “ No it was really tough. I think it was a true test match. All credit to Australia – they really defended well. We started pretty well, I think it’s the best we’ve started a test match in a really, really long time and after 25 minutes we still hadn’t scored any points basically. So all credit to them and ja, it was a tough test match.”

The Boks are now in preparation for their second Tri Nations game against New Zealand in Durban next Saturday.

South Africa 22

Try: Jaque Fourie (13 min)
Conversions: Percy Montgomery (1)
Penalties: Percy Montgomery (3)
Drop goals: Francois Steyn (2)

Australia 19

Try: Matt Giteau (30 min)
Conversions: Stirling Mortlock (1)
Penalties: Stirling Mortlock (4)