Wales v Springboks: Five takeaways as ‘lesser-sung’ stars shine while Warren Gatland must decide if he has ‘appetite’ for ‘long-term project’
Franco Mostert crossing for Springboks against Wales.
Following a 45-12 victory for the Springboks over Wales at the Principality Stadium, here’s our five takeaways from the Autumn Nations Series clash on Saturday.
The top line
It wasn’t quite the glossy farewell to 2024 that the Springboks might have hoped for after 12 minutes when they were 12-0 up, but the world champions finished their season with another convincing win in Cardiff.
Seven tries from Franco Mostert, Eben Etzebeth, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Elrigh Louw, Aphelele Fassi, Gerhard Steenekamp and Jordan Hendrikse demonstrated the dominance of the visitors but to Wales’ credit they stayed in the game after a sticky start and showed a lot of heart and character to keep on battling to the end.
They managed two tries from Rio Dyer and the outstanding James Botham, but whilst there’s no questioning the effort, the brutal fact is this is Wales‘ 12th consecutive loss – and to make things worse their next appointment is in Paris against France in February.
There’s no doubt that these teams are at the opposite ends of the development scale and given the innovations that the world champions have bolted into their game over the last 12 months, there’s a powerful argument that South Africa are one of the best teams the game has ever seen. As a result, Wales will know what they need to do, and when they look back through this match, their key takeout should be when they did something well, they were doing it against the very best in the world.
Old guard shine
This was a game where some of the lesser-sung Springboks had a huge impact on the match. Mostert set the agenda with his try in the fourth minute and the big lock, who has had a terrible season with injury, put in one of his biggest performances in the green shirt, carrying 15 times for over 100 metres and hammering some 12 tackles in a brutally effective outing by one of the Boks’ unsung heroes.
In the backline, Jesse Kriel and Damien de Allende demonstrated once more that they’re the best centre partnership in the game, both having fine outings with ball in hand, running some lethal lines in the trams and down the middle of the pitch. In fact, South Africa really lost shape when De Allende went off and perhaps they’ll think back and conclude that they left a few tries out there in the second half.
And, at eight, Jasper Wiese hit 19 thundering carries, a perpetual thorn in Wales’ side – but his carries were almost always off primary possession, and the freedom the lightening Bok back three enjoyed was largely down to the power work that Wiese and Mostert delivered right down the middle of the pitch into the heart of the Welsh defence.
With Handre Pollard also enjoying a little cameo at the end, carrying hard into contact and drawing defenders to create holes for others, today’s win was a wonderful blend of old and new from Rassie’s Boks as they look to further develop the depth of their incredible squad.
Game in numbers
South Africa made a total of 1079 metres with ball in hand from a massive 183 carries, a quite remarkable statistic. Arendse topped the line breaks with five, whilst to their credit, the Welsh back-rowers Jac Morgan and Botham made a commendable 28 and 23 tackles apiece.
Wales managed just ONE line break in the entire match to South Africa’s mammoth 15, whilst at the set-piece, Warren Gatland’s men managed a paltry 33% success rate at scrum time.
But 48 missed tackles by the hosts tell a sorry tale of their inability to get solidity into their defence and during one 45 second period in the first half Wales managed to miss eight consecutive tackles on their opponents, a very worrying statistic.
However, the biggest difference between the two teams was in post contact metres – the metres made through the tackle – Wales recorded 86 metres in post contact possession, whereas South Africa made a quite remarkable 461 metres post contact, a real endorsement of their power with ball in hand.
Bok experiments
Poor Archie Griffin. The Welsh tighthead’s Test career was going so well until Thomas du Toit, his Bath teammate arrived in Cardiff.
The Bok prop, a player that favours tighthead, demonstrated he’s one of the few props around who are truly world class on either side and for 34 minutes his power was so evident that at one point the Welsh authorities could have been forgiven for opening the roof mid-game, just in case their tighthead was propelled through it.
With Louw scoring and going well on the blindside, on several occasions offering the extra man along the wide channel in attack, South Africa demonstrated once more their sheer depth in their squad, a team where they’ve used a staggering 52 players this season without any obvious drop off in quality. At hooker Johan Grobbelaar went as well as you’d expect, hitting his darts accurately and working well around the pitch, whilst Jordan Hendrikse did a serviceable job at 10 without setting the world alight.
However, at nine, his brother Jaden didn’t do as well, turned over four times by some good close quarter work by the Welsh defence where Morgan, Taine Plumtree and Dewi Lake drained their respective tanks to prevent any further humiliation. Jaden struggled greatly to get ball away quickly and his hurried handling close to the line cost the Boks a turnover of possession on three separate occasions.
The last word must go to Cameron Hanekom, South Africa’s 12th new cap this season – his debut has been a long time coming but he carried on where Louw left off although getting turnover twice in 10 minutes won’t satisfy the big back rower.
Welsh crisis
Let’s be honest, after nine minutes and two tries down, you had to fear for Wales as South Africa looked as if they were about to cut loose in substantial style. The first 30 minutes for the hosts was painful as they managed 11% possession, missed 32 tackles and managed precisely 36 metres of carry in comparison to some 340 metres from the Springboks.
During that time, to compound matters, when the hosts did have the ball their chosen method was to take the ball down the middle into the welcoming arms of green contact, a strategy that wasn’t likely to gain them much success.
But to their credit, either side of half-time they did their best to turn things around, attacking the Boks with greater width and variety, putting real aggression into the breakdown and using their maul to good use to tie in numbers to create space for the well taken try by Dyer just before half-time.
But outside of that 20 minute period, Wales held on by fingertips, the skin of their teeth or whatever they could utilise as the waves of green and gold kept coming.
The simple truth is that the players Wales have on the pitch are more or less the best they have. Sure, they’re in crisis and they’ll realise there’s no short cut to success. They must remember this game and its learnings, identifying little personal successes, like Josh Hathaway clattering Siya Kolisi. They have no choice but to let these youngsters grow, fail and hopefully succeed together – sooner or later things will improve but right now, Wales have to be eternally honest about where and what they have to do to turn it around.
This is time for a new generation of Welsh players and that in itself is a long-term project. The key question now is does Gatland have the appetite to stay with his team for that turnaround project?