ROB DAVIES reports | Sunday, 1.00PM
THE Springbok rugby side on Saturday succeeded in breaking a 17-year drought when they beat the New Zealand All Blacks 13-3 at Athletic Park in Wellington. It was the first time since the 1981 Boks of Wynand Claasen that a South African side managed to beat the All Blacks in their own back yard.
The match heralds the end of All Black superiority in the post-isolation era, and effectively puts paid to any hopes the Kiwis may have had of being Tri-Nations champions in 1998.
The South Africans improved tremendously on their performance against Australia last Saturday, playing with heart and vigour to deny the All Blacks any scoring opportunities. While the scoreline might suggest a match that was completely one-sided, the opposite is true. The All Blacks played a hard physical match, and the backbone of the Bok victory was in their excellent defence.
Midfield stalwart Pieter Muller and flanker Andrew Aitken played supremely well, flattening the Kiwi attackers at every opportunity. The South African tight five also did not stand down to their task and while there may have been speculation about the solidity of the scrum, Robbie Kempson and roly-poly Ollie Le Roux soon laid them to rest.
All Black flyhalf Carlos Spencer seemed to be in the same predicament as Australian fullback Matt Burke was last week, missing five very kickable penalties that, had they landed, may have painted a completely different picture on the scoreboard. Jonah Lomu and the mercurial Christian Cullen were also largely ineffectual, again due to the Boks’ rock-solid defence.
The match was still anyone’s at half-time, with the Boks leading 3-0 at the break. The All Blacks’ replacement scrumhalf Ofisa Tonu’u, who replaced Justin Marshall, injected some venom into the Kiwi’s game, but all to no avail. Josh Kronfeld played outstandingly, and he and Michael Jones were the stand-outs in the All Black team.
Springbok winger Pieter Rossouw’s try nine minutes before the end of the match swung it the way of the world champions, and after a physical and very hard match the Boks deserve their rest before they take on the All Blacks in Durban on 15 August.