Willemse edges Boks to nailbiting win at Loftus

Fullback Damian Willemse proved his temperament by kicking the penalty after the hooter that edged the Springboks to a nailbiting 32-29 win over Wales in the first test of the three match Castle Lager Series against Wales at a packed Loftus on Saturday.

The Boks recovered from their worst half in recent memory, and a 15 point deficit, to produce a dominant but still too error ridden second half that left the game hanging in the balance until Willemse, who was in excellent form for the hosts, kicked the winning points to break a 29-point deadlock and break the hearts of a gutsy, brave and tenacious Wales team.

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The Welsh do deserve kudos for the way they played, not just in their dominant first half, but also with the way they dug in even when the pendulum and game momentum had swung markedly against them late in the second half.

When the Boks were awarded a penalty try in the 75th minute to give the hosts the lead for the first time, most teams would have given up.

However Wales, with rugby at such a low ebb in their country and clearly knowing they were playing to restore lost pride, did not accept defeat.

Although they were at that point down to 12 men with three players in Louis Rees-Zammit, Alun Wyn Jones and Rhys Carre in the bin, they for the umpteenth time prevented the Boks from exiting just after they’d scored points.

And when off a penalty they set up an attacking lineout, Wyn Jones came back onto the field to restore some balance, and yet it was still 15 against 13.

So how did the Boks let them score? But score they did as reserve hooker Dewi Lake peeled around to drive over and level the scores at 29-all.

NO-ONE WOULD HAVE QUIBBLED WITH A DRAW

Welsh captain Dan Biggar, who himself had been carded in the first half, then had a chance to put his team back into the lead with his conversion, but he pushed it to the right to leave the scores level.

Wales would probably have accepted the draw, and they probably deserved it too, but the Boks were determined to get the win that was expected for them, and they launched one final desperate attacking assault as Wales desperately tried to hang in.

The hooter sounded with the scores level but Wales transgressed and Willemse, who took over the place-kicking duties when the out-of-form Elton Jantjies was yanked from the field at halftime, had an opportunity from around 35 metres out and from a position that was roughly halfway between the posts and the touchline if you looked at it laterally.

It has been a long time since Willemse has kicked for goal at top provincial level let alone at test level, but he did kick a crucial conversion from an acute angle before that and he’d shown he had the bottle for the task.

When the flags were raised, he’d proved it. It wasn’t a long-distance kick like the one Morne Steyn kicked here to win the series against the British and Irish Lions in 2009, but it was greeted with almost as much delirium by a 51 000 crowd that has been starved of live international rugby.

Unreal scenes at Loftus Versfeld ??

The Springboks complete the comeback and win the match with a last-gasp penalty after the hooter from Damian Willemse.

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There were quite a few similarities with that pivotal second test of the 2009 Lions series, one being that the Boks just didn’t come out of the blocks, while the Welsh were ferocious and energetic.

While the Boks were inaccurate and made enough mistakes in the first 40 minutes to fill an entire season, the Welsh were clinical and profited from the Boks’ soft moments.

The pace of Rees-Zammit was not something that was showcased that often during last year’s Lions tour, but in this game it came to the fore.

Give him space to work with and he is lethal, and the game had hardly started when the Welsh produced an attack from their half after two Bok errors, ironically one a dropped contestable kick from eventual man of the match Jasper Wiese and then one from the excellent Willemse, that too easily outflanked the Bok defence for Rees-Zammit to score in the corner.

JANTJIES FAILED TO DELIVER

Biggar failed to kick the angled conversion but he was on target with a drop-goal and after eight minutes, the Welsh were 8-0 ahead.

This was supposed to be Bok pivot Jantjies’s chance to shine, but from the early minutes it was obvious it was going to be one of those days where he just hit the wrong notes.

His first field kicks were inaccurate and he hit the posts with his first penalty kick for goal. He kicked one penalty intended for the touchline into touch in goal, and then there was the wrong option of a cross kick onto Cheslin Kolbe, who was well marked by a player who was much taller than him.

Jantjies did kick one easier penalty attempt, but the best moment of the early minutes was one good Bok contest at an early lineout when they looked to be in trouble and Wiese carried up impressively.

Apart from that though, there was just too much kicking from the Boks, more particularly poorly executed and misdirected kicking, while the Welsh were very good at that aspect of their game.

The first time the Boks took the ball beyond No 12 from a line movement they nearly scored, but by then Wales had added a Biggar penalty and then a well taken second try to Rees-Zammit to push the visitors into a handy lead.

NEEDED TO BE FIRST TO SCORE IN THE SECOND HALF

With the Welsh leading 18-3 at the break, the Boks needed to be the first to score in the second half if they were to have a chance of averting their first defeat to Wales on South African soil.

They took eight minutes to do that, with the Welsh success at blunting the Bok maul finally giving way and Bongi Mbonambi dotting down.

Malcolm Marx was then part of the Bomb Squad substitutions that coincided with that score, and that extra energy helped turn the pressure onto Wales.

When Marx dotted down off another driving maul in the 53rd minute, it looked like the Boks were going to take complete control even though they still trailed by three.

However, this was a game where soft moments too often followed the good ones for the world champions, and that happened again, with Wales drawing a further six points ahead, making it a nine-point game, with two further Biggar penalties capitalising on the South African error rate.

The South African tempo and physicality was always going to be a big test for the Welsh late in the game, and so it proved as the hosts moved the ball to the left off an attacking lineout before the ball was swung to the right.

There was a good pass from Willemse, filling in at flyhalf at that point, to create the space and Damian de Allende put through the grubber that Cheslin Kolbe ran onto to score.

Willemse’s angled conversion turned what had been a nine-point deficit into seven and Siya Kolisie’s team were favourites after that, and the penalty try appeared to confirm it with five minutes to go.

But then came another of those soft moments. Wales will be gutted, for they will feel they came so close to notching their first ever win in South Africa and it is unlikely the Boks will be as poor again.

Scores

South Africa 32 - Tries: Bongi Mbonambi, Malcolm Marx, Cheslin Kolbe; Penalty try; Conversions: Damian Willemse 2; Penalties: Elton Jantjies and Damian Willemse.

Wales 29 - Tries: Louis Rees-Zammit 2 and Dewi Lake; Conversion: Dan Biggar; Penalties: Dan Biggar 3; Drop-goal: Dan Biggar.