By Gavin Rich.
The Springboks finished their Castle Lager Rugby Championship season with a deserved 38-21 win over Argentina at Kings Park but were prevented from making a proper challenge for the ultimate prize when they conceded two tries either side of halftime and then lost their discipline.
The Springboks needed a bonus point in the final match of the tournament and victory by at least 39 points to pip the All Blacks for first place.
Earlier on Saturday, New Zealand thrashed Australia 40-14 in Auckland for a bonus-point triumph that took them to 19 points in the six-round Championship.
The 40-point differential they had to make up might have seemed an unrealistic target to many, but Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber felt that his team wasn’t far away from achieving their objective in Saturday’s grand finale.
The Boks did not hit the points differential target and neither did they pick up the needed try scoring bonus point, leaving the All Blacks as winners of the Championship by one log point, with the Boks coming in in a comfortable second place but tantalisingly short of their goal of winning the prestigious southern hemisphere trophy for the second time.
However, there was an extended period in the first half when the Boks were riding a wave of strong momentum, and had they maintained that into halftime, they may well have been Championship title holders now. Nienaber said it was the try conceded on the halftime hooter that cost his team as it blunted the wave that his team had been surfing on.
“We saw it as a realistic target, we took on the task full on,” said Nienaber after his team’s victory over Argentina at a packed and boisterous Kings Park.
“And we were on the task and getting there for a while. We had a plan and we were on task up to the 35th minute. We gave away a penalty then and they got into our half. We then made a few mistakes and they scored a try just before halftime. That changed the momentum of the game and it made it much harder for us after that. Before that we felt the plan was working.”
Asked what lost the Boks the chance of winning the Championship, Nienaber pinpointed the obvious, which was the two losses, first to New Zealand in Johannesburg and then to the Wallabies in Adelaide. However, it was a Championship of very fine margins, and the Boks could just as easily blame Wallaby flyhalf Bernard Foley or referee Matthieu Raynal.
It could be argued that those two together conspired against the Boks in the incident that prevented Australia beating New Zealand in Melbourne last week. Had the Boks been chasing just a win at Kings Park, they would have hit target.
“It was a very competitive Championship this year, the most competitive in many years, and up until the last weekend anyone could have won it,” he said.
“We needed to get a 39-point winning margin to win the trophy, and we all brought into it. The guys gave a full effort out there, I don’t think anyone could fault the effort. In the end we came up short, but you can never take a win in the Springbok jersey for granted, victory is always special, so we are glad we came out on the right side of today’s result even if we didn’t get what we needed to win the Championship.”
Skipper Siya Kolisi concurred with the coach, and said while he was disappointed the Boks hadn’t achieved their goal, he was happy that there was some winning momentum on the Bok side as they look forward now to a difficult end of year tour.
“We had some great moments and weak moments in the Championship, and what we have been looking for is consistency,” said Kolisi.
“We know we can win when our backs are against the wall. Today was a big step forward as we have won three in a row now and can take some winning momentum with us on the end of year tour. In a World Cup you have to make sure you win every game, so making winning a habit is important.
“Unfortunately, what cost us in this Championship was that while we only lost twice, when we did lose, we lost big. One or two losing bonus points would have made all the difference to our Championship challenge. We would have won it had we managed to get losing bonus points in those games.
“But we gave it everything in this game. Argentina are an amazing side and they are a good team with a good coach. We never take a win over the Pumas for granted so while we didn’t win the Championship, we will celebrate this victory.”
When it comes to the buildup to next year’s Rugby World Cup in France, Nienaber reckons there is still a lot of work to do before the team can feel it is where it needs to be.
“We are not there yet, we need to find consistency. In that regard, we will get a good idea where we are on the end of year tour,” said the Bok coach.
“We play the No 1 and No 2 in the world in the first two games of the tour. So it will be a challenging tour for us. The nice thing for us is that when we started this year we looked at the world rankings we saw that we played the top teams in the world. The only team we play this year that is not in the top 10 is Italy.”