Wales v Springboks: Winners & losers as Sacha FM plays ‘floor-filling tunes’ but ‘grubby incident’ provides ‘haters’ with ‘explosive ammunition’
South Africa's Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu salutes the crowd in Cardiff while, inset, Eben Etzebeth reacts after his red card.
Following the Springboks’ record 73-0 victory over Wales in Cardiff, here are our winners and losers from the final match of the 2025 Autumn Nations Series.
Winners
Scrum spectacle
If ever there was a false dawn, it was the sight of Wales being awarded a free kick by referee Luc Ramos at the first scrum on four minutes. South Africa were punished for early engagement and the Welsh pack would have felt good about itself, but that warm feeling was fleeting.
It was two minutes later when they were shunted backwards on their own feed at the next scrum, the penalty decision securing the territory that eventually resulted in the opening try scored by Gerhard Steenkamp.
Then, after Wales erroneously kicked the ball dead, a 14th-minute scrum on half produced the penalty advantage that ended with Ethan Hooker scoring out wide off first phase.
There was a second free for Wales at a 17th-minute scrum, but severe damage had already been done as they were 0-14 down on the scoreboard.
This opening period illustrated the result-defining influence the scrum has on the sport – and it was followed by a well-finished pushover scrum try from Jasper Wiese on the half-hour.
The cranks who want this eight-on-eight spectacle depowered should be ignored. If anything, it’s the law against the crooked feed that needs to start being applied to ensure there is a contest for the ball.
Sacha FM
If Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu were a radio station, it would have listeners and advertisers flocking to it in abundance as the floor-filling tunes just keep on playing.
Last year’s maiden Test rugby involvement had its bumpy moments for the youngster, but now, at the age of 23, we definitely have a world star in the making, and it can’t be long before he is winning the world player of the year award that was given last weekend to Malcolm Marx, his Springbok teammate.
What we like most is that he doesn’t shy away from taking the ball to the gainline, and it’s why his total of 68 points from four November starts includes six tries. His 28-point contribution in Cardiff featured two second-half tries, with the first highlighting his potent speed of thought and 20:20 vision.
With Wales conceding a penalty on the 22, he raced to get the ball, started play perfectly at the mark, galloped in between two Welsh players who couldn’t tackle him as they hadn’t retreated the necessary 10 metres, and then powered through the traffic that was legal and able to try and tackle him.
That solo score took place 46 minutes, and his second try followed 17 minutes later. Forget having just a place-kicking No.10, which is the limit of so many rival Test players; this kid has a wonderful sense for the try line.
The Tony Brown show
South Africa arrived in Cardiff having averaged 37 points and five tries per game in their autumn successes against Japan, France, Italy and Ireland, but those numbers were catapulted upwards by this tour-ending fixture.
Dour was often a description associated with the Boks’ style of play when winning back-to-back Rugby World Cups, but that type of negative assessment is very much a thing of the past with Tony Brown now part of the Rassie Erasmus coaching ticket.
The breadth and depth of the South Africa attack has become incredibly vast on the Kiwi’s watch, and this 11-try demolition of the hapless Welsh is the latest evidence of a job being very well done, no matter the week-to-week personnel.
For example, Ethan Hooker and Canan Moodie were this Saturday’s wingers, and the Boks’ style of play ensured they were heavily involved. Look at the powerful jump of Hooker to win an aerial ball around the halfway line just two minutes in to set the tone.
Both wingers went on to get on the scoresheet. For Test-rookie Hooker, it was his second try in eight appearances, and he is another great addition to the mix.
And for Moodie, this excursion on the left wing, following on from last week’s spin on the right, was a sharp reminder that a player who finished the Rugby Championship with three successive selections at outside centre has so much versatility to offer.
It’s become a South African staple, players who can do a variety of jobs, and the boundaries feel limitless with Brown adapting and nourishing the team’s sweet moving attack.
Straight through for Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 😮💨💪
Watch every #QuilterNS match live on @rugbyontnt and @discoveryplusUK 📺 #QCNS pic.twitter.com/7dWQa1x023
— Quilter Nations Series (@QuilterNations) November 29, 2025
Andre Esterhuizen
We have all learned so much in recent times about South Africa’s appetite for the hybrid player, and in Andre Esterhuizen, there is a poster boy for how you can turn an established back into a potent forward.
That said, it was lovely on Saturday to see the midfielder allowed to get on with the business of just being himself – a centre who carries with an admirable punch and whose passing is on point.
He played in Cardiff as if he had the ball on a piece of string, and the only surprise was that it took 52 minutes to finally score his own well-deserved try.
How apt that it was Kwagga Smith who gave him the perfect assist just two minutes after he was part of the 7/1 bench thrown into the action in an eight-player substitution. What an incredible sight to see all eight replacements go into battle at the same time.
Losers
Eben Etzebeth
A narrative of South Africa’s November was the foul play controversy in which they found themselves. There was a pair of permanent red cards versus France and Italy, and then there was last weekend’s non-carding of Feinberg-Mngomezulu in Ireland.
The red card brandished to Franco Mostert in Turin was of course rescinded, and he packed down in Cardiff.
However, just when it was felt that this match had passed by without any card incident controversy materialising, Eben Etzebeth disastrously got involved in an incident a player of his experience should best avoid.
The Boks were 73-0 up and yet the veteran lock, who was playing a bomb squad role, felt compelled to get involved in an irrelevant dust-up that left referee Ramos with no option but to brandish the red card to Etzebeth for placing his thumb in the eye of Alex Mann.
Erasmus’ team should be universally respected for their well-deserved status as the world’s No.1 side. However, a grubby incident such as this only provides their haters with explosive ammunition to criticise them. Etzebeth, hang your head in shame.
Rassie Erasmus’ frank assessment of Eben Etzebeth’s red card
Welsh attack
The one solace about Wales’ difficult November until Saturday was that, despite being so under the pump, they still managed to concoct some attacking moments to savour.
Eleven tries across the matches versus Argentina, Japan and New Zealand – including a historic Tom Rogers hat-trick against the All Blacks – reflected well on the tactics of attack coach Matt Sherratt, who had been interim coach before Steve Tandy took charge.
However, there was nothing to raise a pulse in this facet of play in match four of their autumn campaign, and it ended in the humiliation of not scoring a single point in 80 minutes.
There was just one visit to the South African 22 in the first half, and that quickly became a disaster with Mann unable to fetch Dewi Lake’s throw and then Dan Edwards conceded the no-release penalty after he dived on the loose ball without clear-out support arriving to help.
This blotted copybook was further smudged with their 49th-minute malaise. With a ruck in the 22 in only their second visit behind enemy lines, the passes that followed gradually resulted in them running sideways and backwards.
This terrible trip down a cul-de-sac then ended with Edwards’ ill-advised pass that went loose and was gobbled up for Moodie to score on the breakaway.
It summed up the general Welsh effort. They only ever fleetingly had possession, and when they did, they were nervous, hesitant and too inclined to butcher it.
Their lack of composure wasn’t a good look, and it was painfully visible again on 60 minutes when their quick-tap penalty five metres from the line ended with a no-release penalty against them.
At their untouchable best 🌟🇿🇦
Watch every #QuilterNS match live on @rugbyontnt and @discoveryplus#QuilterNS #QCNS #WALVRSA pic.twitter.com/U7Bk0biXbM
— Quilter Nations Series (@QuilterNations) November 29, 2025
Keep Rugby Clean
World Rugby make a big deal about their Keep Rugby Clean campaign, but their inefficiency in running the sport continues to damage their reputation, and Saturday’s sight of Asenathi Ntlabakanye coming off the Springboks bench reflected poorly on their ‘clean’ message.
For whatever reason, the tighthead has been allowed to play on despite failing a doping test. His hearing is scheduled to be heard in December but, in the meantime, he has followed five appearances with the Lions with a Test appearance for South Africa.
Now, the front-rower could turn out to be the cleanest, most professional player anyone could meet, depending on the findings at his doping hearing.
However, to see him play Test rugby when he is under investigation highlighted how blunted World Rugby’s powers are and how meaningless their Keep Rugby Clean campaign is.
Siya Kolisi defends Eben Etzebeth stating there is ‘no way’ he eye-gouged on purpose
Welsh indiscipline
You would have to have a heart of stone not to feel some level of sympathy for Wales getting stuffed like this, but they can’t be totally absolved from blame for their brutal capitulation.
Only trailing by four tries at the break should have given pep to their interval talk about digging in even more and making the Boks work as hard as possible for their scores.
However, the concession of penalties and cards have been an issue this month – 33 penalties, one red card and four yellows before Saturday – and this self-inflicted wound re-emerged here.
Failure to put a legal stop to South Africa’s early second-half advance, which ended in Wilco Louw scoring, resulted in Plumtree seeing yellow for stepping off the line too early.
In his absence, the 14-man Welsh leaked three tries and then, with the 10 minutes up and the back-rower set to return, there was the depressing sight of No.8 Aaron Wainwright replacing him in the bin.
There was no debate about the sanction that followed the officials’ 54th-minute review of Wainwright’s shoulder-to-head collision with Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Thankfully, there was no lengthy deliberation either, with referee Ramos quickly deciding the tackle met the yellow card threshold and Wainwright was sent on his way, exacerbating the level of pressure getting heaped on his team.
It’s a massive work-on for Wales heading into 2026 – reducing the number of penalties (the Saturday count was 16) and the number of cards.
WRU box office
Saturday’s match was described by so many media outlets as the game that no one wanted – and they were right. Of course, the respective head coaches, Tandy and Erasmus, said differently.
It’s part of their job, after all, to feed the hype machine with cosy quotes that this was a worthy fixture, and a debate can be had that the Welsh were somewhat competitive, as reflected in what would have been the 0-21 interval scoreline until Morne van den Berg’s converted try pushed the half-time gap to 28.
However, the killer in this ‘worthy fixture’ debate was the optics of banks of empty seats in the lower tier at the Principality, never mind upstairs.
Welsh rugby is at such a low ebb that they didn’t sell out last weekend’s clash with the All Blacks. That crowd figure was 68,388, and it dropped to 50,112 for the visit of the reigning back-to-back world champions.
Fans are voting with their feet, and the WRU are going to have to produce some marketing magic to tempt these lapsed spectators back.