The Springboks did what was expected by starting their test season with a 42-24 win over Italy at Loftus but it wasn’t quite the blow out some might have expected and as that scoreline will suggest they were given a good work-out by the Italian team.
When Bok flyhalf Handre Pollard ended the game by kicking the ball into touch there was a palpable sense of relief among his teammates. Seconds before it had looked like Italy had wriggled their way through for a fourth try but Scottish referee Holly Davidson ruled otherwise and awarded a penalty to the Boks.
Had Italy got over for that score it would have been no less than the visitors deserved after a rousing second half performance that saw them score 21 points to 14. It was a game that satisfied the old cliche of it being a game of two halves, with the Boks dominating the first half and shutting out their opponents to take a 28-3 lead, but Jesse Kriel’s men were well short of clinical after halftime and it was a performance that would have left them with lots to work on in the buildup to the second test in Gqeberha next Saturday.
Perhaps that is a good thing, with coach Rassie Erasmus not needing to warn his team against any complacency ahead of the clash at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, where he will expect them to be much better at executing their game than they were in Pretoria.
In truth, it wasn’t just in the second half that the Boks had aspects of their game that fell short. Even in that dominant first half, where Italy were denied any sniff of possession for long periods, there were warning signs, most notably in the form of Italy’s tigerish defensive effort and in particular the way they managed to disrupt the Boks and slow their ball down at ruck time.
The slow ball inhibited the Bok attacking game, even though scrumhalf Morne van den Berg made up for it to some extent with his incisive play at the base of the scrum. Van den Berg could have been the man of the match last week but this time, with no-one else standing out more than he did, he was a deserved recipient of the official award, with the tireless, physical and omnipresent Jasper Wiese a close second.
CAPPED WITH A BRACE OF TRIES
Van den Berg capped his great performance with two tries, the first of them effectively a scrum pushover try, and then four minutes before halftime he wriggled over for his second. At that point, with the Boks powering into a 25 point lead, it looked like the pre-match predictions of a more than 30 point win - actually many had the winning margin at 40 - would be realised.
It looked like the Boks had started to wear down the high press Italian defensive system and the willingness of the likes of Italian openside flanker Manuel Zuliani to get his hands dirty and put his body on the line by swarming over the ball and getting in between the Bok forwards.
It was as much due to good work from Italy that the Boks struggled initially to get the points that were threatened by their complete early dominance, particularly in the scrums, as it was to anything wrong with the Bok game. The first try was scored by Jesse Kriel running onto a little dinck from his centre partner Damian De Allende in the 10th minute.
Davidson ruled an onfield try but it was referred to the TMO and it did look to the naked eye in real time like Kriel might have been marginally in front when the kick was executed, but at that point it didn’t look like it would matter much on a day when it looked like the Boks were heading for a huge win.
ITALY LINESPEED CONTINUED FOR 80 MINUTES
The Italian linespeed on defence was impressive, but the question was “How long will it last?” It turned out that the answer was “The whole game”, but the Boks got some daylight between themselves and their opponents when in the 22nd minute the scrum pushed the opposing eight back over their own line and Van den Berg dived on the ball to put his team 14-0 up.
Then came the best example of Bok flair coming to the fore, outside of one later on when Damian Willemse stepped half the Italian team in setting up a try to Vincent Tshituka that was disallowed because of obstruction. The Boks threw in at a lineout and wing Kurt-Lee Arendse weaved through off first receiver. Italy flyhalf Giacomo Da Re had kicked a penalty by then, so it was 21-3.
One other moment of positivity had been a poached lineout for the Italians, but when Van den Berg completed his brace it looked like it would be a long second half for Italy.
However, after the Tshituka non-try, it was really all Italy for the next half an hour, when they scored 21 points to seven, with Zuliani scoring the first try and a deserved one not long after the famed and feared Bok Bomb Squad had come onto the field to the accompaniment of a flash of fireworks.
There were no fireworks from the Bomb Squad this time, instead it was Italy who did most of the pressing after that, and while replacement tighthead Vincent Koch scored in the 57th minute, Italy struck through replacement hooker Pablo Dimcheff and skipper on the day Niccolò Cannone to make it 35-24 before Marco van Staden crossed for the sixth Bok try.
Scores
South Africa 42 - Tries: Jesse Kriel, Morne van den Berg 2, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Vincent Koch and Marco van Staden; Conversions: Handre Pollard 6. Italy 24 - Tries: Manuel Zuliani, Pablo Dimcheff and Niccolò Cannone; Conversion: Giacomo Da Re 3; Penalty: Giacomo Da Re.