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Kolbe magic and defence wins it for Boks

rugby16 November 2024 20:33
By:Gavin Rich
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A try from man of the match Cheslin Kolbe ensured the Springboks overcame an England team that brought their A-game as well as their own uncharacteristically high penalty count to score a 29-20 win in their big match of the tour at Twickenham on Saturday.

It was far from the best Bok performance and they were forced to rely heavily on some determined defence in the second half. They needed that defence, because the Boks kept conceding double penalties that enabled England to spend most of the second half in South African territory.

A lot worked for England in the first hour, who got off to a dream start when Ollie Sleightholme scored a try after just three and a half minutes. The selection of the tall Freddie Steward at fullback worked a dream for them, with the big man winning the contest in the air, while with Marcus Smith pulling the strings at fyhalf, the hosts also showed up much better than expected on attack.

However, the Boks again found a way to win, this time through some moments of individual brilliance plus the commitment shown in defending when England were leading by one point and looked like they may take control of the game in the third quarter.

GREAT ADVERT FOR INTERNATIONAL RUGBY

It was a pulsating and highly entertaining test match that was a great advert for what international rugby can produce. In some ways, the first half was a bit like last year’s World Cup quarterfinal between the Boks and France. On that occasion six tries were scored, this time there were five - three to South Africa and two to England.

It was a thrill a minute. First came Sleightholme’s try, with flyhalf Smith drawing Eben Etzebeth out of the defensive line to prevent what he probably thought would be a drop-goal attempt. Smith was shaping to the right but switched to the left and the Bok defence was wrong footed as the England left wing went over in the corner.

Smith’s conversion made it 7-0 to England and against another team you’d have expected the opposition to be a bit wobbly. But not the Boks, who held their composure and after a brilliant aerial win from Kolbe it was scrumhalf Grant Williams who produced the X-factor moment that was needed as he scythed through the England defences around the fringes.

Once he was past the first line of defence there was no chance of England stopping him and he went over near the posts to complete a score that with Manie Libbok’s conversion brought the Boks back to 7-all after 11 minutes.

It was one of those games where both teams made mistakes at the restarts, and England were back in the lead at 10-7 after 14 minutes as Pieter-Steph du Toit conceded a penalty in an easily kickable position for Smith.

LIBBOK MAGIC CREATED THIRD TRY

If Du Toit felt bad about that he quickly had a smile on his face. An England clearance was charged down by Eben Etzebeth, and then Du Toit charged down Smith’s scrambling clearance and chased the ball down to dot down next to the left touch in goal. Libbok hit the posts with the angled conversion and missed a long range penalty just before halftime, but he did produce his moments of magic.

The most important of those was what created the third Bok try, with the Boks exploiting a penalty advantage in the England red zone by Libbok putting in the cross kick that found Kolbe with space around him and just one defender to beat. Kolbe is always going to come up trumps in that situation and he easily wrong-footed the England player to cross for a try that Libbok converted to make it 19-10 to the Boks after 21 minutes. Considering England had been 7-0 ahead, that meant the Boks had scored 19 points to three in no time at all and at that point it looked like those who had predicted a one-sided game might be vindicated.

INDISCIPLINE

That it didn’t happen may have had a lot to do with the moments of Bok indiscipline that cost them field position on the day. Most of that was in the second half, but one instance in the first half was the neck roll from Aphelele Fassi that saw England boot the ball from the penalty into the Bok 22 and from there they set up a try for flanker Sam Underhill.

Underhill was picked to be a pain for the Boks at the breakdown, and he succeeded with his mission, thus preventing the Boks from picking up their sought after momentum. The Boks did get two first half scrum penalties and were the superior team in that phase but there weren’t that many set scrums in the first half.

The Boks went to the break just two points ahead and a lot depended on how they started the second half. They looked like they had given themselves a dream start when Kurt-Lee Arendse went over in the left corner two minutes into the half after Fassi had created the extra man in joining the line.

However, the TMO Ben Whitehouse chalked off the try because he ruled that Fassi’s pass to Arendse was marginally forward. The Boks then conceded a penalty which was turned into a double penalty, and it looked like England had scored a huge psychological blow when they ended up crossing the line at the other end.

Yet, apart from the fact that the long pass to Henry Slade looked suspiciously forward, this time Whitehouse was on the money in spotting a neck roll from Maro Itoje in the buildup. So that try was chalked off and when England did finally go ahead by one point through a Smith penalty, the Boks might have considered they had won that battle given the pressure they were under at the time.

POLLARD ELICITS DEJAVU FOR ENGLAND

There were some uncharacteristic errors from the Boks, such as Malcolm Marx overthrowing his first lineout and then a few times later, and that all conspired to the Boks playing for a long time deep in their own half. However, as they tend to do, they managed to withstand the assault, and when Handre Pollard, who came on for Libbok after 45 minutes, was presented with a long range penalty attempt in the 58th minute, it was a case of deja vu for England, who lost out on a passage to the World Cup final because of a similar long kick from the ice-cool South African in last year’s semifinal in Paris.

The kick bounced in off the crossbar, and the Boks were back ahead. And then just minutes they were more than a score ahead as in the 63rd minute Kolbe used his pace to outstrip the England defence after a strong break from Damian de Allende.

England continued to apply pressure and the Boks were in trouble when Gerhard Steenekamp was penalised in the 68th minute, but thanks to Pollard’s excellent touchline conversion of the second Kolbe try, the Boks were more than a score ahead as they went into the last 10 minutes. There was a bit of a meltdown from England in the sense they made some questionable decisions, such as not kicking a kickable penalty to posts with eight minutes to go. England are a team noted for losing matches in the final 10 minutes so in a position where they were trailing by nine going into that period they never really looked likely to snatch the game from the world champions.

Scores

South Africa 29 - Tries: Grant Williams, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Cheslin Kolbe 2; Conversions: Manie Libbok 2 and Handre Pollard; Penalty: Handre Pollard.

England 20 - Tries: Ollie Sleightholme and Sam Underhill; Conversions: Marcus Smith; Penalties: Marcus Smith 2.

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