By Gavin Rich.
The Springboks produced a mixture of power and flash that sent out an ominous warning to the rest of the world about where their game could develop to as they buried the Pumas 48-7 to clinch their second Castle Lager Rugby Championship crown at Mbombela Stadium on Saturday.
The Boks suffered a setback last week when they were edged out by one point by the Argentinians in Santiago, but if it created the platform for this statement performance from Siya Kolisi’s men, then most South Africans will take it.
The Pumas had a mountain to climb to win the Championship but it was obvious from a very early stage of the game, as the Boks swarmed onto the attack, dominated possession and territory and just suffocated the life out of their opponents, that they weren’t even going to get beyond the first base camp on their climb.
The Boks scored seven tries to one excellent effort from the Pumas, but it could easily have been more on a day where the well beaten visitors actually showed a lot of pluck and character. Less committed and driven teams could easily have leaked more than 70 points against the Boks in the mood and the form they were in.
The Boks have of course beaten the Pumas by big scores before, but not often or ever has there been such skill and flair allied to the traditional forward strength that the Boks most definitely haven’t eschewed in the era of Tony Brown as their attack coach. What they’ve done is just supplement what they already had with a scintillating extra dynamic.
Manie stood tall
And on this day let it be said that the extra dynamic revolved a lot around the man who was so maligned after last week’s late penalty miss. From the vantage point of the Mbombela Stadium press box, which is high up so it gives an excellent perspective of where space is and how much Manie Libbok’s passing game flumoxed the opposition and played the Boks into scoring positions, you could only marvel at the skills of the No 10 as he revelled in the go-forward ball provided by a dominant pack.
It isn’t just his passing from hand, which is sublime going in both directions, but also his kick passing that makes him such a dangerous attacking player. He did over-kick one cross kick early on and there was one forward pass, otherwise Libbok’s game could not be faulted and he thoroughly deserved the rousing ovation he was given by the festive Mbombela crowd when late in the game Handre Pollard replaced him.
Obviously coach Rassie Erasmus does owe Pollard some game time too, so it was the right call, but the Boks would not have been stunted in any way had Libbok stayed on for the duration. Not that it was all just about Libbok, and on a day when the kicking duties were taken with some success by scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse, who himself had a brilliant allround game, there were many of the usual suspects who stood tall, most notably centre Jesse Kriel who capped his omnipresence with a try near the end.
Pieter-Steph du Toit is so consistent that it almost seems pointless to mention his name, for his incredible work rate and the force he brings to the Bok game should almost be considered a given. It was Du Toit who scored the second Bok try, diving over a melee of players to dot down, to put them 14-0 up after as many minutes as the hosts capitalised on their early forward dominance.
Big men laid the platform
But it was the scrum that laid the initial platform, with the early pressure on the Pumas seeing them lose their usual discipline. They conceded five penalties in quick succession, with the Boks opting to scrum them near their line after an initial lineout set-up was repelled. Referee Ben O’Keefe must have come close to awarding a penalty try on at least one occasion, but eventually it was the Bok attacking game in the Pumas red zone that secured the first points for the Boks as the Pumas just ran out of tacklers as the Bok passing game created space on the right and fullback Aphelele Fassi exploited it to go over for the first try.
There might have brief flutters from Bok supporters who remembered how quickly the game swung against their team at a similar stage of last week’s game when Thomas Albanaez scored the only Puma try a few minutes later, but those nerves were settled when Hendrikse was on target with a penalty and it became clear the Boks were not letting up on their intensity. They were simply relentless as they committed the Pumas to making tackle after tackle, and let it be said much of that was because of the handling skills that appear to have gone up a level over the past few months. On a day when the Pumas reverted to their old type of indiscipline and saw three players carded, two of them yellow and one red, they never had a hope.
Let it be said though that much of their indiscipline was simply down to the Boks squeezing them with their pressure game.
The first time they went down to 14 men was when Fassi was taken out in the air, so maybe it was fitting that the Sharks fullback was the man who rounded off a thrilling passage of attacking play to complete his brace. Both Libbok and the impressive Damian de Allende played important roles in the buildup as the ball was kept alive and direction was switched several times.
That made it 22-7 with eight minutes to play in the half and any thought of another Pumas fightback had all but diminished under the green and gold tidal wave. Cheslin Kolbe featured prominently on attack in general and also in that try, and it was the wing who got onto the scoreboard next as he wrong footed the defence out on the right to make it 27-7 at halftime.
The Boks missed some scoring opportunities in the third quarter, where neither team scored, but with Pablo Matera being yellow carded and then the colour switched to red by the bunker, the Pumas’ task of trying to limit the score just became too much as the Boks finished with a flurry that took them tantalisingly close to the half century mark.
The Pumas were down to 13 men by the end but in truth they were well beaten long before then as the Boks comfortably picked up five log points to make sure of a Championship title that in truth always looked likely when they started so strongly in Australia in August.
The full house at the Mbombela had much to celebrate and generally it was a memorable occasion just like the day when they beat the All Blacks here two years ago, so it was a pity that some of the fans spoilt it a bit at the end by behaving so loutishly by trying to encroach onto the field and test the security guards.
The abiding memory though will be of Kolisi and his team lifting the trophy in a colourful ending ceremony that capped a dominant Rugby Championship performance.
Scores
South Africa 48 – Tries: Aphelele Fassi 2, Pieter-Steph du Toit 2, Cheslin Kolbe, Malcolm Marx, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Jesse Kriel; Conversions: Jaden Hendrikse 2 and Handre Pollard 3; Penalty: Jaden Hendrikse. Argentina 7 – Try: Tomas Albornoz; Conversion: Tomas Albornoz.