A wounded Springbok team laboured hard to a spirited 21-20 Tri-Nations victory over the All Blacks at Rustenburg’s Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace on Saturday, bringing to an end New Zealand’s 15-match unbeaten run.
Playing for the first time at the stadium, Springbok coach Jake White had pleaded with his players to lift themselves out of the team’s five-match losing streak, and the Springboks responded with a commanding and near-ruthless performance.
The Springboks played a near-perfect game of rugby as they continuously suffocated the All Blacks in the tight phases and threw their bodies on the line when they were under siege.
The Boks had looked vulnerable in the mid-phase of the second half when Joe Rokocoko scored a try in the 64th minute to give the visitors a 20-18 lead. However, the Boks did not lose their cool and piled on the pressure in the dying moments, forcing the All Blacks to concede penalties.
It was the penalty in the 78th minute, though, that proved fatal for the All Blacks as Andre Pretorius caressed the ball over the crossbar to give the Boks the narrowest of leads at 21-20 — a lead to which the Boks would cling for dear life, until the hooter blasted.
It was a deserved victory for a Bok team that sweated blood against the best the All Blacks had to offer. It was the unrelenting pressure the Boks applied on the All Blacks, especially in the line-outs and scrums, that resulted in the All Blacks not gaining any sort of momentum in the game.
The Springboks were first to draw blood in this fiercely contested encounter with a penalty as early as the eighth minute. New Zealand hit back quickly and Daniel Carter levelled the scores in the 10th minute before Pretorius gave the Boks the lead again in the 16th minute.
The match looked set to turn into a see-saw battle between the boots of Carter and Pretorius until Carter ambled over the Springbok try line in the 20th minute from a Jerry Collins offload.
Virtually from the kick-off the All Blacks hesitated, and in a freakish second the All Blacks were standing behind their poles after Bryan Habana intercepted a Rodney So’oialo pass.
Both sides went into the half-time interval deadlocked 13-13.
The opening 10 minutes of the second half seemed like a full-blown heavyweight boxing fight between two unrelenting rivals until Pedrie Wannenburg barged his way over the All Black try line in the 54th minute to give the hosts an unconvincing 18-13 lead.
Rokocoko’s 63rd-minute try came from an enterprising All Black attack, which saw Mils Muliaina grubber through for Rokocoko to dot down and give the All Blacks the narrowest of leads at 20-18.
With the Springboks looking vulnerable and the All Blacks thinking the game was in the bag, out came Pretorius as he pinned the All Blacks in their territory with his racking kicks.
The All Blacks seemed to run out of ideas under the unwavering Bok onslaught and finally conceded a penalty in the 78th minute that will long haunt New Zealand rugby.
It was a penalty, though, that will go down in South African rugby folklore as the one moment that salvaged the Springboks from their second-worst losing run and probably saved the jobs of Jake White and a few senior members of his team.
The All Blacks will go back to New Zealand a broken unit who had arrived in South Africa on top of the world, while the Springboks will go into their Nelson Mandela Challenge match against Australia at Ellis Park next Saturday feeling like kings of the rugby world. — Sapa