Comment: ‘Bone-shuddering intensity’ powers Springboks to All Blacks ‘annihilation’
Ox Nche carrying the ball into contact (front right) with an inset of Damian Willemse (left)
A huge slice of history in the Cake Tin for Rassie Erasmus’ bounce-back Boks. Not a crumb of comfort for the shellshocked All Blacks.
Sky Stadium has played host to some tough nights for New Zealand rugby in recent years, but none as chastening as this.
This was the evening Erasmus silenced critics who dared to write off South Africa’s Rugby Championship title defence and question whether the two-time World Cup winners’ era of dominance is at an end.
The occasion on which the Springboks, embarrassed by Australia in Johannesburg and their own worst enemies a week ago in Auckland, bit back.
South Africa did not just beat the All Blacks; they annihilated them. A 43-10 defeat is New Zealand’s heaviest ever defeat. They had never lost by more than 15 points on home soil.
‘This one is for our coach Rassie’
Less than a month after blowing a 22-0 lead and conceding 38 unanswered points to the Wallabies at Eden Park, the Boks scored 36 points without reply in the second half.
Twenty-eight days after their new have-a-go style of play came apart at the seams on the highveld – with Erasmus accusing his men of overplaying and branding their performance “dogsh*t” – they road tested ‘have-a-go 2.0’ and it drove quite beautifully.
“This one is for our coach Rassie, who’s been taking a lot of shots and been backing us as a team,” man of the match Damian Willemse said after a rout which retained the Freedom Cup, sent the Boks second in the Rugby Championship and won back their world number one ranking.
Cheslin Kolbe scored two tries, Willemse, Kwagga Smith, RG Snyman and Andre Esterhuizen one apiece to leave Sky Sports NZ commentator Grant Nisbett admitting: “They have completely embarrassed the All Blacks.”
Erasmus will be thrilled at the way his team set the tone from the opening kick-off, won by Aphelele Fassi, putting the pedal to the metal and never letting up.
He will be proud that they maintain their record of not having lost successive Test matches since November 2022, with a performance captain Siya Kolisi described as “fearless”.
Perhaps most of all, he will point to the miracle intervention by Grant Williams to deny Will Jordan a try in the final minute. The game was won, Williams was playing out of position on the wing, the tackle was not vital in the context of the result, yet the scrum-half made it just the same.
“The Springboks certainly showed up,” All Black captain Scott Barrett admitted later. “Gutted we couldn’t quite get the job done.”
Quite?! They were a million miles off once Kolbe made amends for losing the ball over the try line in the 10th minute with two brilliant scores either side of half-time, which more than negated one for Kiwi debutant Leroy Carter.
Everything the Boks did, they did at pace and with bone-shuddering intensity. It came at a cost, with Sacha Feinberg Mngomezulu and Kolbe lost to concussion and Fassi and Lood de Jager to injury.
Yet this was a statement performance that they all bought into, from start to finish, no matter the cost. It was about reasserting the Springboks’ place at the head of affairs, proving to the doubters that Team Erasmus is nowhere near done.
All evening, Rassie’s men carried in their hearts the memory of Bevin Fortuin, a former Bok who died on Thursday from a heart attack at the age of 46.
Willemse, who played out of his skin first at inside centre then fullback after Fassi was stretchered off with serious ankle damage on the stroke of halftime, made a point later of dedicating the performance to his “close friend”.
For New Zealand, there was only pain. Their lineout failed, their scrum folded, they kicked balls dead. By the end, they even questioned the choice of venue.
The Cake Tin, so named because it is a silver circular stadium, has long been an unhappy hunting ground for the three-time world champions.
It was where Martin Johnson’s England beat the All Blacks with 13 players in 2003, where the British and Irish Lions squared their series in 2017, where Ireland won a series for the first time in 2022.
“ABs should never play any big games in Wellington again,” Malakai Fekitoa, the former All Black, tweeted.
He might have a point, but that is for another day. The focus now for the battered and bruised Kiwis has to be to lick their wounds and be ready to host Australia in a fortnight.
This result has blown the title race wide open. They trail South Africa and Australia only on points difference with Argentina, worthy winners over the Wallabies in Sydney, one point back.
For years, the Rugby Championship has been seen by many as a poor relation to the Six Nations. Too predictable. Of the 29 previous editions, New Zealand won 20.
Nobody is saying that now. Not after four rounds in which all four teams have beaten each other. With two match weekends left, nobody can predict the winner with confidence.
All we know with any certainty is that the Springboks are back. Emphatically so.