Springboks v Los Pumas: Five takeaways as Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s ‘individual genius’ helps world champions thrash Argentina ‘with some style’
Springboks playmaker Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Los Pumas counterpart Tomas Albornoz (inset).
Following a 67-30 victory for the Springboks over Los Pumas in Durban, here’s our five takeaways from Saturday’s Rugby Championship encounter.
The top line
A Springboks performance that started with comedic errors and mind boggling incompetence grew into a wonderful display of dominant power rugby as they delivered a quite bizarre display of rugby contrasts as they disposed of Argentina, eventually with some style.
Siya Kolisi had promised the KwaZulu-Natal fans a statement performance, but few expected the scoreline we witnessed. Shoveling 60 points on a side of Los Pumas’ stature, 35 of them in a wonderful second-half showing, didn’t appear on many pundit’s cards, with most calling a 7-10 Bok win. And to underline Kolisi’s promise it was the rookie playmaker Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu that made most of the statements, as the young starlet delivered a hat-trick performance of landmark level and put himself at the top of the list for the most points by a Springbok in a Test match, as he notched up 37 to beat Percy Montgomery’s 20-year record of 35.
Alongside the Sacha three, South Africa’s others tries came from Malcolm Marx, Cheslin Kolbe, the outstanding Pieter-Steph du Toit (2), Manie Libbok and Morne van den Berg as they crossed the Puma line nine times in total.
Los Pumas will be absolutely devastated at their showing; they might look at the structural stuff, the set-piece and midfield defence, as the key points of failure. Their tries came from Santi Chocobares and Tomas Albornoz, with a penalty try making their tally three. And to add to their woes, Stade Toulousain’s star utility man, the superb Juan Cruz Mallía left the pitch on a stretcher, a sad end to an outstanding tournament for the full back.
Sacha sashays
That first half may well have been an utter disaster for South Africa had it not been for the individual genius of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu who demonstrated an ability to think clearly under pressure that far outstripped his other cohorts in green as he treated the Durban faithful to a hat-trick hero performance of seismic nature, becoming the heaviest Bok scorer in a Test match to boot.
Firstly, we saw a moment of genius as he chased his own 50/22 attempt; his acceleration left the whole of Argentina for dead as his chase down saw the ball hold up just short of the line and a moment later he dotted down for the best individual try you’ll see this year.
Then, as SA’s thinking crumbled after the Marx card, it was SFM that had the awareness to challenge the clock; the officials agreed four seconds were left and South Africa struck once again through the brilliant youngster, with some wonderful work from Pieter-Steph du Toit carrying in the build up.
A lot will be talked about regarding the magical moments, but behind those, there were some brilliantly intelligent executions of the Bok kicking game, both field and aerial, and a great appreciation of getting runners off pop passes into space.
But Sacha’s personal impact wasn’t finished yet; the first score of the second half is always a critical blow in close Test matches and it was the impish fly-half who saw Kolbe unmarked on the wide right, hammering a wonderful cross kick to see the winger, anxious to make up for his earlier blunder, ignite his jets to leave Los Pumas for dead and to make that crucial post break blow. And then, to add insult to injury, a wonderful sashay dummy saw the laaitie crash over for his deserved hat-trick in a complete performance.
The message should now be loud and clear to Rassie Erasmus; stop messing around with rotational selection and give this young superstar the keys to the Bok castle. He is that good.
Dumb and Dumber
However, the way the Boks started, few would have believed how the final result would unfold as the first half indiscipline and error count from South Africa needed to be seen to be believed.
For a side that prides themselves on their accuracy and precision, their brain fades, technical mistakes and, at times, sheer stupidity will infuriate their coaching team as the Boks managed to steal their own momentum time and time again.
From sealing off from Canan Moodie, to Thomas du Toit’s breakdown and defensive blunders, we saw the lot. But nothing could prepare the battle hardened Springbok fans from two of the dumbest moments seen in recent times to gift Los Pumas two scores.
Firstly we saw Kolbe, a man noted for his high rugby intellect, look to get the ball to his fly-half to drop out. Unfortunately the diminutive wing decided to drop kick the ball to him and it landed up in the grateful arms of Chocobares who strolled over in the nearest thing you’ll ever see to an own goal in Test match rugby.
Not content with one dumb moment, Malcolm Marx, a man finally starting to get back to some inkling of form, gave referee Angus Gardner no other option than to award a penalty try as the hooker went into the side of the Argentinian rolling maul and treated the officials to the clearest example of collapsing the ball carrier from an offside position that you’ll ever see. Marx was rightly rewarded with a yellow card for his braindead efforts and trotted off the pitch to cool his jets.
It continued deep into the second period two, with even the world class performers like Eben Etzebeth (off feet on ruck clearing) and Pieter Steph du Toit (in front of the kicker) adding more misery to the error count notes in Rassie’s notebook.
South Africa are at their best when they use their huge experience and incredible understanding of rugby to play with precision – and these errors went against everything their brand stands for.
Second-half stars
Whilst the first half was, at times, awful, the manner SA pressed the accelerator and sped past the Puma challenge was yet another example of bench impact and great physicality.
SFM will dominate the headlines – but the shift delivered on the blindside flank by Du Toit was absolutely phenomenal. In recent years he’s bolted on a wonderful running game to his peerless physicality in defence and he carried tirelessly, 18 times and grabbing a couple of tries, in a brilliant personal performance.
Malcolm Marx, a man celebrated much harder in the Republic than elsewhere in the rugby world, might have committed a heinous act at maul time, but his work around the ruck and in the maul was back to its absolute sharpest – and it finally seems that he’s emerging from two years of poor form to get back to his very best.
With Etzebeth and Nortje causing all sorts of issues in the lineout, and a full service effort from the pack in the scrum, a word for the men that connect the backs and the forwards; Cobus Reinach may have aging hamstrings in his jet propelled legs, but his experience in getting tempo around the base was absolutely key in igniting the Springbok attack and it was great to see Morne van den Berg continue where Reinach left off.
Add in the final seasoning as RG Snyman and Kwagga Smith did their very best impressions of little and large off the bench and, despite that first half horror show of stupidity, South Africa should be applauded for the way they sorted their issues out and completely dominated the second half in a champion display of power rugby.
If one thing, other than SFM, kept SA in the match in those early exchanges, it was the predicted and palpable set-piece superiority that’s been a feature of their game for so long.
Los Pumas came into this game with the best lineout completion and steal in the 2025 Rugby Championship, but this was the day their form deserted them. South Africa ran riot in the pressure and stealing efforts, grabbing five against the throw (or overthrow). The communication on numbers and set-up deserted them – they looked like a scratch side who’d rehearsed in the hotel car park with coffees in their hand an hour before kick off.
And the scrum creaked and collapsed with equal ineptitude as Joel Sclavi and Mayco Vivas came under immense pressure from the powerful Bok front-row, giving the hosts a vital platform with which to launch their early attacks.
However, one crumb of comfort that the visitors will take is the form of both of their fly-halves. Santi Carreras was excellent, especially in his field position kicking, for much of the match as he managed to get some territory despite the ferocity of the Bok moderated press D. And the moment Tomas Albornoz came on then he crossed over for a score, demonstrating that SFM isn’t the only emerging world class 10 on the Durban turf. But in the final analysis, this might just be Los Pumas’ worst performance of 2025 – and a lot of that was down to how their set-piece failed under the immense Springbok stranglehold.
READ MORE: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu the hero as Springboks cruise to emphatic triumph over Argentina
