Boks vs Wales Match report

There had been a lot of huffing and puffing in the Welsh Valleys this last week about their team’s chances of scalping a Southern Hemisphere giant, but it all came to nought and for the 14th successive occasion the Boks slayed the Dragons.

The game was much hyped as a showdown between the champions of the Northern Hemisphere and the world’s second best team, and the three tries to zip scored by the Boks in their eight-point victory at the imposing Millennium Stadium accurately conveyed the message that the balance of rugby power remains south of the equator.

Wales had pumped themselves full of belief because they had provided the Lions share of the team that beat the Wallabies 2-1 in Australia in June, but that result needed to be contextualised – and that is that the Wallabies have their worst team in decades.

And yesterday the Boks did not even play particularly well. Their discipline was poor, their set scrum malfunctioned and they came second in the battle for the ball on the round. But every now and again they produced moments of magic that led to tries.

Wales had talked themselves up all week, fancying their chances of winning just their second match against the Boks in 26 attempts since 1906, and the Boks certainly did not want to give them a start that would put wind into their sails, but that is what Wales got when Leigh Halfpenny kicked two penalties in the first seven minutes due to infringements at rucks, although Morne Steyn pulled three points back in the fourth minute.

The Boks had battled to get their hands on the ball in the first 10 minutes but when they launched their first meaningful attack, it had a spectacular result. Bryan Habana counter-attacked from just inside his half and a sweet dummy saw him strike clean through the midfield. On the Welsh 22, the wing drew fullback Halfpenny before feeding Bismarck du Plessis, who was up in rampaging support, and he managed to fling out a pass to Jean de Villiers, who dived over for a sensational try.

The Boks were in full flight and their second try, five minutes later, was clinical in its execution. Captain De Villiers chose to kick two consecutive penalties to the corner, the lineouts were well driven, and off the back of the second one, the mighty Bismarck was unsinkable from close range.

Steyn’s conversion shot the Boks into a 17-6 lead after as many minutes, but it was Steyn’s last action of the match. He went off injured, meaning coach Heyneke Meyer’s plan of giving Patrick Lambie a run at flyhalf on tour was forced on him sooner than he would have wanted. Willie le Roux came on at fullback.

Oddly, it took 20 minutes before the first scrum of the game, and the Boks were penalised for not scrumming straight. From the possession, the Welsh worked their way into a position to earn a penalty for Halfpenny to kick.

The deficit was further reduced by Halfpenny as half time encroached when Habana was caught holding on after he had scampered back to field a hack-through from a ball dropped in the Bok midfield.

Wales were back in the game and the momentum was with them when Springbok opensider Francois Louw was yellow-carded for literally rubbing Wales hooker Richard Hibbard up the wrong way. An elbow to the face and then a fist pushed into the jaw looked worse on the big screen that it was, and with the crowd roaring their heads off as they saw the replay, referee Alain Rolland was probably influenced into reaching for the card when a penalty would have sufficed. Still, it was a needless series of actions by Louw, and it put his team under pressure.

And Wales then scored the crucial first points of the second half when the Boks once again were penalised at scrum time. Halfpenny’s fifth successful kick, without having missed one, narrowed the score to 17-15 to the Boks, and it was the Welsh that were looking the more accomplished side.

With the game on a knife-edge, there was a bizarre twist when Rolland simultaneously binned Gethin Jenkins and Coenie Oosthuizen, on for Frans Malherbe at tighthead, for collapsing the scrum, meaning uncontested scrums for ten minutes as the game approached the final quarter.

The match was deadlocked and it was crying out for moment’s brilliance to swing it either way. It came from South Africa’s Japanese connection, Fourie du Preez and Jacque Fourie, when the former chipped cleverly down the touchline from broken play, and the latter followed it up and deftly tapped it back in field for Du Preez to catch and dash to the posts. Lambie’s conversion gave the Boks a cushion at 24-15.

Scorers

Wales (12) 15

South Africa (17) 24

Wales: Penalties: Leigh Halfpenny (5)

Springboks: Tries: Jean de Villiers, Bismarck du Plessis, Fourie du Preez. Conversions: Morne Steyn (2), Patrick Lambie. Penalties: Steyn

Mike Greenaway in Cardiff