Seven reasons why the Springboks couldn’t get the three-peat in Joburg
Thoughts on an epic turnaround by the All Blacks - and the juicy Rugby Championship that awaits
The incredible narrative just runs and runs between the All Blacks and the Springboks. Against all the odds – yet somehow not surprisingly – the Kiwis denied their enemies a rare hat-trick in some style in Johannesburg yesterday. While there have been better games between the old foes, the context of this one puts it up there in the rivalry’s annals. No less a game than the second test at Loftus in 1996, at which New Zealand clinched its first away series in ‘The Republic’, springs to mind for comparable gravity.
(Speaking of deciders…wouldn’t that be nice? As I wrote earlier in the year, if a Bok migration to the Six Nations is the only way three-test series between these two nations can make a comeback, then I’m all for it.)
So, as the head-to-head tally since the start of 2018 swings back to black at 4-3 (with a draw thrown in), how did this one unfold the way it did? It was a tough one to break down. To be honest, it kept me up half the night, my thoughts buzzing. And so, by way of closure, here’s my Sunday take on where it went wrong for South Africa – and right for New Zealand.
Photo source: Offical All Blacks account on Twitter
The Sports Minister
It’s the game after a match in which you put your biggest foe away with a perfect, pinpoint performance. Getting up after one of those is one of rugby’s under-appreciated challenges. As Bryan Habana pointed out before the kick-off, you only have to ask England how they got on in Yokohama a few days after taking New Zealand apart in a certain 2019 encounter. Which is exactly why you should not get in the way of anything that helps your team build what South Africans call gees as the start approaches. Walking down the legendary tunnel at Ellis Park, onto a stage that means everything to the Springboks, would surely have stirred any player that hadn’t yet ‘turned up’. The recipe to stay in the zone from there is child’s play: anthems, haka, go.
Conversely, there’s no better way to put out the fire than making players stand around shaking hands for several minutes. You could almost feel the spirit of the home run-out wearing off as the Sports Minister and his merry band of dignitaries made their way down the line. Siya Kolisi has better things to be doing in moments like this than introducing his players to thoughtless, glory-hunting politicians. Eben Etzebeth looked distracted and annoyed – and distracting your enforcer plays perfectly into the hands of the visiting side.
Unless you’ve got a Nelson Mandela up your sleeve, the handshake stuff is best left for Lansdowne Road.
The Engine Room
The first exchanges between the big boys up front were an early hint that this might not be South Africa’s day. The first scrum, in particular, saw the All Blacks set down a marker in the same manner the Boks had in early on in Nelspruit. It may only have been a short-arm penalty to the tourists, but the significance was exaggerated given the changes in personnel. These were not the same guys who had bossed it the week before, after all. So New Zealand had every reason to believe in the notion of a fresh start.
The injured Bongi Mbonambi was painfully missed in this game. Frans Malherbe’s 50th cap was sadly nothing to write home about. And by the time Joseph Dweba threw it in crooked at what would have been an excellent Bok scoring opportunity in the 20th minute, you knew for sure that members of the Bomb Squad were going to be making an early appearance. But after an opening 20 where both teams juggled the ball without troubling the scorers, the hosts had arguably left critical points on the table by the time Malcolm Marx (29th minute) and Steven Kitshoff (35th minute) ran on ahead of their usual schedule.
Deathly silence
Just like at the Stade de France, any team visiting Joburg knows that their best shot at getting into the game is shutting up the crowd early. The All Blacks did a brilliant job of that on Saturday.
Whether this was by accident or design is an interesting question. It certainly wasn’t a case of them putting unanswered points on the board early. Both teams struggled for continuity and points in the first quarter. But perhaps it didn’t matter that the Kiwis couldn’t string much together. What counted was that South Africa didn’t.
In the absence of empowering collisions and scrum penalties (see Engine Room), you’re going to have to string some phases together to get the crowd going. Because with the best will in the world, no audience can make a noise when the opposition – or that guy sitting in Row D – has the ball. By the time the Springboks gave the Ellis Park faithful a chance to get into its stride, the All Blacks had shaken off any intimidation factor the venue may still have – and had critical points on the scoreboard.
Not Kicking On
Jaden Hendrikse was absolutely faultless after his unexpectedly early run-on in Nelspruit. Faf de Klerk’s replacement was rightly praised for his key role in the success on the Lowveld – primarily his box kicks. Up in Johannesburg, for whatever reason, he turned into a liability with the boot. Too long, straight up in the air, directly into touch…you name it. Under such circumstances, winning an aerial battle was never going to be a route to victory this time around. Was that a case of Hendrikse getting cocky? I’m more inclined to say hats off to New Zealand for finding a way to hurry and disrupt him in his efforts.
That call
Hendrikse also featured prominently in a couple of huge refereeing calls on the evening. In the second, when he was blocked trying to hack a loose ball through towards the line in the 67th minute, he was the victim – not that the All Blacks seemed to have too much trouble playing with 14 men after the ensuing yellow.
But it was the first of these calls, around the three-quarter mark, that made you puff out your cheeks and mutter ‘this is a huge turning point’. The obstruction that led to an otherwise brilliant piece of work by Lukhanyo Am being disallowed. A likely seven points – and the lead – instead became three points to New Zealand. Which, in turn, resulted in the next Bok try – which, in a testament to the Springboks’ ability to keep their heads down, didn’t take long – not having the same scoreboard impact as the original one would have done.
No complaints about the referee’s call. Just saying it might turn out to be a moment on which the entire Rugby Championship hinges. Never mind just yesterday’s Test match.
Ian Foster and his staff
As they say in the press conferences: credit where it’s due. It may not save Ian Foster’s bacon, but the All Black coach will surely have gone to sleep with a smile on his face last night. After the phenomenal storm of flak he’s weathered in recent times, no fair rugby fan could begrudge him and his staff a celebratory moment after a good week’s work leading up to the second test.
We don’t know exactly who is calling the shots behind the scenes in All Black land, but the changes worked, with Richie Mo’unga proving the right option at 10 after Beauden Barrett’s flawed genius cameos in Nelspruit. That said – and in Barrett’s defence – Mo’unga got his fair share of front foot ball to play with at Ellis Park. The pack appeared to have done nothing but homework over the week, easily living with the Boks even after they brought their heavy metal on early. Good as the scrum was, it was their counter to the South African rolling maul that may have done more than anything to win the game. The Springboks tried, tried and tried again, but simply could not get it going. How often can a defending team say that? Almost never. Kudos.
Ellis Park…
Yes, I’m calling it Ellis Park because I answer to nobody in this column, don’t collect Frequent Flyer points from Emirates and believe that without history, sport is almost worthless. You don’t need me to explain why the Jo’burg venue is a spectacular, pulsating example of that.
But is it actually a fortress for the Springboks? It must surely be time to abandon that theory. Sure, there was a time when the results did bear out that notion: The All Blacks lost four of the five clashes between 1995 – the RWC Final, of course – and 2004. Many on the squad hated the place with a passion.
But though the atmosphere is undiminished when the locals are in full cry, and there’s no rugby occasion like these two sides meeting at this particular stadium – what a shame the 100th test was played in bloody Queensland! – the spine-tingling trio of matches from 2013 to 2015 have put paid to the aura. New Zealand won two of them, with the other only going South Africa’s way thanks to a questionable intervention from the host broadcaster at the death. And now this. Which makes it a slim 5-4 to South Africa at this venue since (and including) the day Stransky, Pienaar and Mandela built its reputation as the Springboks’ very own House of Pain.
It’s a funny one, though. Looking back on those games as a close observer of the Springboks, what stands out is the next-level attacking play they seem to find in Johannesburg. Just look at a showreel of the tries they’ve scored at Ellis Park since 2013. But, equally, the ground also seems to make them lose the defensive grit that they can count on elsewhere. They miss tackles, and it costs them more points than they gain scoring tries.
Even allowing for the disruption of losing a back early in this game, there’s a pattern developing in South Africa’s Johannesburg play. Finding the right balance between attack and defence – and perhaps even learning to channel the crowd in a different way – is a fascinating challenge for the Bok coaching setup going forward.
As the dust settles on New Zealand’s mini-tour and the Pumas wake up with sore heads on Sunday, the great news is that the Rugby Championship looks as open as it has done for years. Four teams with a win each after the first two rounds? This is truly a welcome change.
Before the pandemic, when the fixture list was tired and repetitive, the picture was almost always the same at this stage. The Kiwis would have thrashed Australia away, then thrashed them by a little less at home. South Africa would have beaten Argentina twice, but usually hadn’t picked up the bonus points they knew would be critical later on. Man, you needed to be some storyteller to find variations on that one after a few years.
Now the schedule has been shaken up and the dynamic is totally different. And we’ve got some interesting venues, like Adelaide and Christchurch, coming up to keep the theme going. While the rugby in South America suggested Argentina and Australia both need to tighten up their discipline (at the very least) to compete for the tournament trophy, ruling out any of the four teams at this stage would be a brave call…
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