Australia v Springboks: Five takeaways as ‘devastating’ Bomb Squad mauls Wallabies while Rassie’s ‘experiments’ pay off
Our takeaways from the Springboks' 30-12 victory over Australia in the Rugby Championship.
Following the Springboks’ 30-12 victory over Australia in Round Two of the Rugby Championship, here are our five takeaways from the game.
The top line
A rain-soaked Perth saw the Springboks continue their impressive form as they grew into a match played in horrendous conditions to emerge victorious, as their defence and rolling maul combined to see off a much-improved display from the Wallabies.
A wonderful opening try from the impressive Aphelele Fassi was the only score from open play as both Marco van Staden and Malcolm Marx (twice) sealed the scoreline as they rumbled over from short-range mauls.
Australia struggled to threaten the whitewash due to a combination of the sheer ferocity of the South African defence, where both Lukhanyo Am and Jesse Kriel put in massive displays leading that famous Bok blitz into anything wearing gold, and their own unforced errors, where the mental pressure of that blitz and the conditions conspired to see them make 19 handling mistakes in open play.
The Bok defence has now conceded only one score in 160 minutes of play in this year’s Rugby Championship and that try came when they were down to 13 men in the first test. Their display in this match simply underlined the fact that they’re a team for all conditions as they powered their way to a memorable but rather damp win.
Bomb Squad fires
It was a Springbok win a long time in the making as Australia did their best to overcome the conditions and put in an impressive first-half performance that may well have seen them go in ahead at half-time.
However, for context, this was an experimental starting line-up and whilst a couple of the newbies came away in credit, it was too much too early for a number of the other changes.
It came as no surprise that as the likes of Eben Etzebeth, Marx, Kwagga Smith and Vincent Koch strode on, so South Africa worked their way back into the game, adapting to conditions courtesy of their devastating rolling maul, which saw the impressive openside flank Van Staden and the always world class Marx cross the line for three of the Boks’ four tries.
There will be frustrations at how other chances were not closed out; both Makazole Mapimpi and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu blew chances they’d normally close off in a heartbeat, but the mitigation for that was the biblical rain that fell over Perth almost all evening.
Once again, the most impressive things about the world champions was their adaptability and rugby intellect in the context of the match conditions in front of them. From the brilliant tactical experimentation of last weekend to the shift to forward-orientated wet weather precision rugby, they demonstrated once more that they set the bar for other teams to aspire to.
Springboks changes struggle
In terms of South Africa’s changes, Rassie’s experiments met with a mixed return.
At scrum-half, Morne van den Berg struggled in the conditions, suffering from a stuttering and inaccurate pass that saw him resort to bringing in one-off runners and failing to get any form of momentum or space into the Bok backline. He offered little variety at nine and when Grant Williams came on, so the Boks lifted their game with ball in hand.
Hooker Johan Grobbelaar had a torrid time finding his man, not helped by some ambitious calls to the back of the lineout in persistent rain and wind, thus robbing South Africa of a key component of their usually immaculate set-piece platform. It took the simple method of front ball and a maul drive in the second half before the Boks got any form of mojo into an area of their game where they habitually dominate.
On the plus side, Ruan Nortje put in an impressive performance around the park, living up to his billing as an extremely mobile lock. Alongside him Elrigh Louw also made some big dents in carry, however there’s an argument to say his eagerness to assist with the scrum hit isn’t helping the stability of the Bok pack.
Lifting locks at the moment of engagement is a tactic that divides scrum coaches; it can help with the momentum of the hit, but more often than not it destabilises the locks at a time when they are craving a stable but powerful engagement. On three occasions, Louw’s eagerness saw Nortje change position as the front-rows came together and in each instance, Australia benefitted from either a free kick or a penalty due to lack of control caused by his over-eager lifting of his locks. Sure, it looks impressive, but more often than not it creates more issues than benefits.
The biggest tick in the Erasmus changes came at full-back where Fassi was extremely impressive, combining brilliantly with the impressive Mapimpi for the Boks’ first try and adding real surety at the back, giving South Africa another option as Willie le Roux reaches the twilight of his incredible career.
Wallaby bonuses
On the flip side of the Bok changes, we saw impressive returns to action for Angus Bell, a world-class loosehead prop, and Marika Koroibete, a proven veteran of wing play for Australia.
Koroibete gave the Wallabies much-needed contact through carry, a real target for metres in testing conditions, whilst Bell largely contained the immense power of Thomas du Toit on his side of the scrum.
Noah Lolesio, a man whose name rather appropriately, suggests he’s built for 40 days of biblical rain, held his team together well at ten, showing the progression into the shirt that many have looked for from the talented young fly-half, but he’ll rue his hooked penalty just before halftime that would have seen Australia take the psychological blow of a half time lead into the sheds with them. His quick thinking and control under pressure almost created the moment of the match as Test debutant Max Jorgensen came within a tackle of a try in his first test.
With Nic White drawing upon all of his experience of Premiership Rugby in mud and rain, and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, despite coughing up a simple pass under the Bok posts, delivering possibly his best Test performance to date against the world-class South Africa locks, Joe Schmidt can take a lot of plusses from the course of this game, even if his charges didn’t quite get the result some of their play deserved and failed to get over the whitewash despite several chances.
Wallabies player ratings: ‘Impressive’ Tom Wright stands out but bench ‘fail’ in defeat
Schmidt learnings
The conditions lent themselves to the close pop running game off nine that Schmidt coaches – although those handling errors cost them any form of continuity from the field possession they enjoyed. They will also admit that the uncontested scrums for 30 minutes of the match took away any form of dominance that the Bomb Squad front-row had intended to exert and that makes this Aussie performance a little hard to assess.
However, their front row competed well up until half-time, the returning Bell and skipper Allan Alaalatoa refusing to buckle under the pressure of the Bok starters. They’ll also be pleased with the work of their lineout, where Salakaia-Loto and Angus Blyth gave as good as they got despite the poor conditions for throwing in.
At half-back, Lolesio and White combined well, with the fly-half showing some great variety and ambition in his kick work to try and move the Bok rush around the park and open up some form of hole in their line.
But for all those good things, there was a distinct lack of cutting edge in the midfield and back three runners as they struggled to get any form of width on the ball to get around a narrow but fast rush. That coupled with the inability of the Wallabies to cope with the high ball, especially down their own right wing, was very costly for the hosts and they’ll be looking to work out a way of getting the traditional qualities of heads-up running rugby back into the stuttering backline.
