Following a 32-30 victory for New Zealand over South Africa in their Rugby Championship game, here’s our five takeaways from the Pretoria clash.
Game of two halves alright: We all know the highveld becomes a factor later on in matches but this had little to do with that. 6-6 at half-time, it looked like being a low scoring contest with defences showing their quality. Enter the second-half as between the 40th and 62nd minute there was 36 points scored before the All Blacks crossed for two further tries in the final six minutes. What a half, what a match.
Great escape from All Blacks: We saw last week how the Springboks’ physicality suffocated the life out of Australia. It was a repeat effort from the South Africans, for the most part, on Saturday as New Zealand were given a gruelling evening at Loftus Versfeld, losing so many of the key battles before they somehow crossed the finish line with their noses in front. How New Zealand won the game after being 30-13 down on the hour mark while South African tails were up shows their quality and also a great deal of character as it seemed an impossible task.
Faf again wins the battle: He made Aaron Smith’s life a misery in Wellington and once again today De Klerk claimed the scrum-half bragging rights. From the first opposition scrum he stripped the ball from Smith’s grasp before going on to dominate the territorial and box kicking game with smart option taking. Sale have missed De Klerk and will welcome him back with open arms in England but forget hero’s returns, he deserves a hero’s goodbye from his Bok team-mates and fans as the scrum-half has been simply excellent throughout this Rugby Championship.
Many positives for Springboks: We’re still scratching our heads how the hosts lost that game as personal battles were won, they dominated the statistics and it looked like New Zealand were out of answers at 30-13 adrift. There’s no question that back-to-back wins over the All Blacks would have been a huge psychological fillip for the Boks ahead of the World Cup but they can take so much from this performance. In Pretoria every player to a man impressed and Rassie Erasmus will be incredibly positive and proud of his men as it’s still so early in his tenure. Make no mistake, South Africa will be genuine Webb Ellis contenders when the tournament rolls around later next year.
Richie handles the heat: There was plenty of hype surrounding Richie Mo’unga following his impressive Super Rugby campaign, but his first tastes of international rugby weren’t up to his usual high standards. Steve Hansen has stood by him though and rightly so as his class is there for all to see, with the coach not afraid to send him into the cauldron that is Loftus with his side needing direction. He certainly provided that with solid carries with ball in hand, excellent touch finders and the calmness to knock over the match-winning conversion.