ROB DAVIES, Cape Town | Saturday 7.35pm.
A LAST-ditch effort sparked by a controversial Joost van der Westhuizen try could not see the Springboks to victory over a rock-solid England who triumphed 22-27 at the Free State Stadium on Saturday.
Twenty-one year old England flyhalf and man-of-the-match Jonny Wilkinson was sublime, scoring all 27 his team’s points, with a breathtaking kicking display that included eight penalties and a drop-goal.
England led 18-12 at half-time.
Wilkinson, who missed out on last week’s Test, which was won 18-13 by the Springboks, hardly put a foot wrong during the match, marshalling his backs brilliantly.
The England forwards were streets ahead of their Springbok counterparts. They secured faster, cleaner posession and arrived at the breakdowns long before their opponents did. Skipper Martin Johnson was tigerish in the tight, while the England loose-forwards, particularly Neil Back, were excellent.
The tourists employed a rock-solid defensive pattern, giving the Springboks very little chance of crossing the line, and it was not long before the 37000-strong crowd who braved a chilly, but clear Free State evening showed their disapproval.
The Springboks will have to go back to the drawing board if they want to see the Tri-Nations title on the mantelpiece.
Their first-phase posession was woefully inadequate, with referee Stuart Dickenson of Australia warning the South Africans on numerous occasions for infringements on the deck. The Boks, however, hardly heeded his calls and their indiscipline cost them dearly after Dickenson acted firmly on repeated calls to Bok skipper Andre Vos to talk to his players.
The South Africans lacked fire and determination, with the backline trying to manafacture moves, but ending up playing aimless rugby, throwing the ball around to no obvious plan or purpose, while the forwards could not really get a head of steam going in the engine-room.
Indeed, the Springboks played against a 14-man outfit for 20 minutes of the match, and still could not find their way over the line. When Lawrence Dallaglio was sent off in the 45th minute, the Boks should have scored. Instead, with England missing one of their finest players, they gave away two penalties and a drop-goal.
When, on occasion, the Springboks looked like turning up the heat, England simply kept their cool and defended brilliantly — allowing the Springboks to run themselves either out of steam or into a number of big hits, resulting in a overturned posession.
The Springboks scored their points through flyhalf Braam van Straaten, who slotted four penalties in the first-half, with Percy Montgomery adding a penalty and a conversion in the second half.
Up until the 80th minute, the Springboks were trailing the tourists 15-27, but former skipper Van der Westhuizen scored a controversial try after the television referee Andre Watson ruled that the scrumhalf had grounded the ball from a maul on the England line.
The try seemed to put the spark back in the Springboks, who attacked ferociously, but were let down by handling errors and their inability to breach the England defence.
Referee Dickenson showed that he was not to be trifled with, sending off three players for professional fouls: England prop Jason Leonard, Dallaglio and Van der Westhuizen, who scored minutes after his ten-minute cooling period, were all told to take some time out.
The match was by no means a classic, and was charecterised by tough battles among the forwards, with scythe-like defence from both sides.
As in 1994, honours are shared 1-1 in the two-Test series.
The win sees England registering only their third-only victory on South African soil, and perhaps fittingly so in the City of Roses.