A youthful and relatively inexperienced South Africa trounced a star-studded World XV 32-7 at a miserably cold, wet and blustery Walkers stadium on Sunday.
Having led 10-0 at the break, South Africa scored three tries in the second half to finish their end-of-year tour with their second win from four outings.
Matt Perry, the England full-back, said it was teenager Francois Steyn who shut the World XV out of the game.
”Steyn’s boot killed us,” he said after being substituted in the second half. ”He has a massive boot on him for a 19-year-old and he kept kicking it into the corners. We couldn’t get our hands on the ball. They played clever rugby.”
Steyn, rather modestly, said the win would give the Boks ”plenty of confidence ahead of the World Cup” next year. ”I just hope,” he added, ”that I’ll be lucky enough to get selected”.
If the World XV was going to produce something magical, it was likely to come from Andy Farrell. Farrell was expected to make an impact in his first senior rugby union match since switching codes.
Unfortunately for South Africa, Farrell, with almost his first touch of the ball, made an unintended impact by sending De Wet Barry groggily from the field. The Stormers centre, slammed his head into Farrell’s hip when attempting to make a tackle.
The World XV were unable though to take advantage of that temporary Bok set-back as they struggled for any coherence, having come together, from literally all over the world, earlier in the week.
After a period of aimless kicking from both sides, Wynand Olivier broke spectacularly down the left flank before off-loading to Jaco Pretorius. Pretorius came within inches of the line before he was dragged down. Ruan Pienaar, so adept at both scrumhalf and flyhalf, dug the ball out and flicked it to Wikus van Heerden, who crashed over for the opening score.
It was, however, Pretorius’s last contribution to the game as he limped off minutes later with a suspected hamstring injury.
Having already lost an inside centre and a wing, the Boks were forced into a hasty rejig of their backline when Francois Steyn, playing at flyhalf and having started at both wing and fullback, left the field, temporarily, clutching his bleeding face.
Bosman then was pushed into flyhalf and Pienaar was sent to the wing to make way for Ricky Januarie.
Still, despite that dramatic disruption, the World XV still were making little impact and it was South Africa who scored again, this time through Pienaar slotting a penalty.
Finally after half an hour, Farrell was given the chance to put some points on the board after Danie Rossouw was penalised for hanging on to the ball after breaking from the back of the scrum. The former Great Britain rugby league captain, however, missed the kick.
A minute before the break, Farrell was given another opportunity to put his side on the scoreboard but managed, somehow, to miss from almost directly in front of the uprights to leave the score at halftime at 10-0.
The break also drew to a close Chiliboy Ralapelle’s stint as the first black captain of a senior South African rugby side before fellow hooker Gary Botha took over the skipper’s armband.
”It’s a great honour and a priviledge to have being captain,” said the 20-year-old Blue Bull. ”But we should definitely have more points on the board. I reckon this half we’ll get it right and start scoring.”
Ralapelle was proved almost immediately right. After Steyn, back on the field from the blood-bin, kicked his first penalty and then Pienaar stepped inside Lawrence Dallglio and tore down field.
He passed inside to Albert van den Berg, who showed remarkable pace to keep up with Pienaar, who then stretched his long arm over the tryline. Van den Berg popped again with eight minutes on the clock to stretch over for his second try.
Three minutes later Drew Mitchell finally scored for the World XV in the left hand corner. Rossouw immediately cancelled that score with a try in the final minute. – Sapa-AFP