South Africa are through to the quarterfinals of the World Cup where they will play New Zealand in Melbourne. They won their final pool match 60-10 against Samoa at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
The Springboks were brilliant in the first half and dreadful in the third quarter, but they finished strongly and did enough to make the All Blacks realise they are in for a titanic struggle next week.
The star of the show was Derick Hougaard, who completed the full house of try, conversion, penalty and drop goal in a flyhalf display that should have had the coaching staff avoiding the cameras to hide their blushes. Hougaard matched Joel Stransky’s full house against Australia in the opening game of the 1995 World Cup and Andre Pretorius who achieved it against New Zealand in last year’s Tri-Nations.
Hougaard was not faultless: he missed touch twice and failed to get two drop goal efforts off the ground, but after the second he had the temerity to laugh at the distance between conception and completion. This boy is not just another in flyhalf, he’s the real thing. Oh that the coaching staff had realised that ahead of the match against England.
Any lingering doubts South Africa may have had about their ability to maintain their unbeaten record against Samoa were dispelled in the very first minute of the game. Joost van der Westhuizen made a blindside break to conjure up memories of his mighty prime and Joe van Niekerk took the scoring pass on the inside to sprint in from 25 metres.
After Earl Va’a’s fourth minute penalty had put Samoa on the board Hougaard stroked a 40 metre drop goal in the ninth minute and in the 27th the 20 year old prodigy was on hand to kick ahead and win the chase to the line for the Boks third try.
In between Jorrie Muller finished off a sweeping back line movement after good driving play from the forwards in the 12th minute and in the final movement of the half Juan Smith wrapped up the bonus point for the Boks.
It wasn’t all good news. Van Niekerk went off with what looked like a serious injury at half time to be replaced by Danie Rossouw. Of far greater concern was a sometimes criminal disregard for the sanctity of possession inside the opposition 22.
In the first half alone the Boks threw away four gilt-edged try scoring opportunities after all the hard work had been done. In the second half they lost structure and allowed Samoa exactly the kind of broken play possession that they must have practised assiduously to avoid.
It allowed Samoa’s marvellous back row into the game and captain Semo Sititi was on hand to provide the scoring pass to Opeta Palepoi for Samoa’s first try in the 47th minute. Sevens specialist Mauri Fa’asavalu went close five minutes later and the third quarter of the game was filled with desperate South African defence.
Finally the Boks reverted to a more rigid game plan, driving Samoa back in mauls and generally keeping the ball among the tight forwards. Hougaard completed his full house with a penalty on the hour, but was then demolished in a tackle by the hard tackling centre Brian Lima. Fotunately for South Africa’s hopes going forward in this competition he was restored to health.
Having weathered the Samoan storm the Boks ran riot in the final quarter with tries from Ashwin Willemse, Jacques Fourie, Jaco van der Westhuyzen and Neil de Kock. Eight tries in all and the best performance by a mile by the Springboks in this World Cup gives the nation a licence to dream that their tournament will last more than one game into the future.