There surely won’t be any more talk of Australia being a bogey destination for the Springboks after the World Cup champions completed a perfect two match tour with a comprehensive 30-12 win over the Wallabies at Optus Stadium in Perth on Saturday.
The hosts as expected upped their physicality a bit from their lame effort in Brisbane the week before and were in the game for longer than they were at the Suncorp Stadium, but at the same time there were some significant levelling factors that were always going to make this a more hard fought win for the South Africans.
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Aphelele Fassi runs on to Mapimpi's perfect grubber to score for the Boks 🤩
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The first of those levelling factors was the weather. It was a game played in inclement conditions, with rain falling for six hours before the match and then again during it. Of course these days the home based South African players play in northern hemisphere competitions, so rain isn’t unusual to them. But weather as bad as it was in Perth, with the rain teeming down heavily at stages, is always going to be a leveller.
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That contributed to an error rate that prevented the Boks from fully capitalising on their first half dominance in the battle for both possession and territory, with some opportunities missed and also some poor discipline towards the end of the half letting the Wallabies back in as the two teams went to the break with the Boks enjoying just a two point lead.
ANOTHER LEVELLING FACTOR
The second levelling factor was the injury swathe that cut through the Wallaby front row resources forcing the game to be played with uncontested scrums for a significant portion of the second half. The starting scrum had already stamped its dominance, which underlines the depth the Boks have in that phase as most of the units in the scrum didn’t play in Brisbane, but the first choice front three of Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Vincent Koch would have been frustrated that they could not make their expected stamp on the game in their speciality.
Marx did revel though in converting the superiority of the other Bok forward staple, the driving maul, with his two tries stretching the Boks out of range and to an ultimately comfortable win. It was the first time the Boks have won both games in Australia on a two match tour there in the professional era, also the first time they’ve gone three games in a row Down Under as winners in the professional age, with the two wins recorded following on from their triumph in Sydney in 2022.
Last but not least, it was the first time in the professional era that the Boks have won four games on the trot against the Wallabies, with last year’s win at Loftus factored in. Those records reflect both how much the Boks have grown as well as how much the Australians have slipped in recent times.
Most importantly it was a tour where the Boks racked up full points, which is what made the tour perfect. Their four tries to nil secured the try scoring bonus point to ensure a full house of log points, which lifts the Boks to a comfortable top of the log position in the Championship with a third of the competition gone and the All Black visit to South Africa to come.
Of course, the extra bonus was that this comfortable win was achieved by a much changed up team, with 11 changes, if you include the positional switch of Pieter-Steph du Toit from lock back to flank, being seen by some as a risky selection.
And with the rain falling as it was, there might have been some nervous Bok supporters both in the crowd that egged them on at the Optus Stadium as well as among the millions who were watching on television back home. Those nerves wouldn’t have been quieted in the opening minute when the kick off was knocked on under pressure from the reintroduced wing Marike Koroibete.
Then with Wallaby scrumhalf Nic White taken out off the ball at the back of a ruck, the Wallabies were awarded a penalty which was kicked by flyhalf Noah Lolesio for the hosts to take a 3-0 lead. That though was the last time the Wallabies led, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking a penalty to level the scores and then, after a gilt edged opportunity was wasted when Feinberg-Mngomezulu knocked on a Cheslin Kolbe pass when he had the line at his mercy and then another when Makazole Mapimpi lost control of the ball on the corner flag, came a special try from Aphelele Fassi.
It was a superb transitional breakout from the Boks, with newcomer Jan-Hendrik Wessels the spark as he quickly transferred a spilt Wallaby ball near the South African 22 in the 17th minute and with the quick handling skills of the likes of Lukhanyo Am creating the opportunity that was nailed by a kick ahead at bounced perfectly for the chasing Sharks fullback.
At that time the Boks lost their captain Salmaan Moerat to what looked like a minor concussion, with Eben Etzebeth adding experience to the Bok engine room and coming on to lead the side for the last hour.
MISTAKES BUT ONES THAT WERE UNDERSTANDABLE
Johan Grobbelaar missed a few lineouts in his second test but in the conditions maybe that was understandable, while Feinberg-Mngomezulu wasn’t always on point with his handling and kicking game. But the Boks were still always comprehensively better than the Wallabies and it only seemed a matter of time before they would make that count.
It took a while, with the Wallabies getting some momentum in the last minutes of the half mainly through Bok indiscipline. They had a chance of going to the break with an unlikely lead but Lolesio uncharacteristically missed what should have been a regulation penalty kick to leave it at 11-9 to the Boks.
The Boks needed to score early in the second half to take the game by the scruff, and the first maul try was dotted down by Marco van Staden, who had an outstanding game, just three minutes after the restart. One of the blights on the Bok performance was the way they did allow the Australia free entry back into the game during the first hour by giving away silly penalties, and two minutes after the Van Staden try that put the Boks nine points ahead, the Wallabies came back into range after another three pointer from a penalty awarded for another off the ball challenge on White, who himself was marched back later in the buildup to the first Marx try.
The fourth Lolesio kick was the last time the Australians bothered the scorers though, and from then it was really all the Boks and the Wallabies could easily have lost by a lot more.
Scores
South Africa 30 - Tries: Aphelele Fassi, Marco van Staden and Malcolm Marx 2; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Handre Pollard; Penalties: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2. Australia 12 - Penalties: Noah Lolesio 4.